


Faerie Tale

by psyche_girl



Category: Dresden Files - All Media Types, Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Demonreach Island, F/M, Fix-It, Harry Does Not Deserve these Women, Harry's Not Dead Yet, Incest, Kid Fic, M/M, Marcone Is A Creeper, Molly is a Hero, Murphy is A Badass, PTSD, Slavery, Thomas is an Idiot, Winter Knight, discussion of past torture and abuse, dubcon, lots and lots of burning buildings, noncon, violence of the Ass-Kicking Evil Faeries and Monsters variety
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-21
Updated: 2013-11-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 15:02:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 62,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/492488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyche_girl/pseuds/psyche_girl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Faerie Tale in five parts, containing Harry Dresden's brief and fatally flawed career as a damsel in distress, a heroic rescue by a knight and a wizard, ritual sex magic, destiny, true love, bagels, disillusionment, and Donar Vadderung recast as the slash dragon from Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> As always, let me know if there’s anything I forgot to warn for, please! I DO NOT want to trigger or offend anyone, and I am more than happy to edit.
> 
> The different parts of this story are each titled after various types of love, according to ancient (supposedly) classical definitions. Chapter quotes are taken from Child's version of the Scottish folk ballad Tam Lin.

"My Knight," Mab said.

I tried to think of two words in the entire English language I hated more, and couldn't.

"I had hoped not to have to issue this order," she continued, voice warm and sympathetic. Color me impressed. All Mab's sympathy really meant was that she wasn't going to be the one personally causing me pain or forcing me to hurt things in the immediate future. And at this point, I frankly didn't give a damn which of the Court was giving me orders; all of them were just as awful to obey.

Unless it was Maeve again. Empty night, I hoped it wasn't Maeve.

I racked my brain, trying to think which of the higher-up Fae were likely to be cashing in on a favor, but came up with nothing. Things had been...well, not peaceful, recently. Not quiet. But...consistent. Yeah. Consistent was a good word.

Before Maggie, before Mexico, before _Mab_ , I used to think I didn't have a peaceful life. I used to be wrong.

I tuned back in only to find that Mab had finished speaking and was looking at me expectantly. _Shit_. "Sorry. What?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"I said," she repeated, the air around me growing just a few degrees colder (a warning, and not a very subtle one - stars, she was pissed), "I am going to have to order you to kill John Marcone."

I sputtered.

"Okay. _What_?"

"I know you were listening, Knight. I thought I had trained you in manners sufficiently last August." Icicle coldness prickled up my spine, and I flinched.

"My deepest apologies, my Queen," I said with thorough sincerity, dropping into a bow. I used to think there wasn't a monster alive that could force me into good manners. It was a point of pride with me: they could destroy my home, they could destroy my friends, they could destroy my life and my freedom and my body, but they couldn't ever destroy my God-given right to mouth off.

Stars and stones, I'd been innocent. Ignorant. Looking back on it, I almost scared myself.

"I don't understand the order, my Queen. Baron Marcone is a signatory of the Accords. It would be an act of war for any agent of Winter, even the Winter Knight, to openly attack him."

"Which is why the attack will not be open," said Mab coolly. "Baron Marcone will shortly attempt a ritual which will place him in a position resulting in certain death. Your orders are to help ensure he places himself in this position. I am giving you to him."

I blinked.

Wait.

_What?_

"It is not a trade I am pleased to make," Mab said, sounding almost petulant. "But circumstances compel me. Go to him, and follow his orders as you would mine until such time as I call you to return. And do try not to die in the interim."

And with that she disappeared, fading out of sight like a vanishing snowflake, leaving me with my marching orders and confusion. And a whole faceful of melty new snow.

I huddled into my duster (faerie leather, made from the skins of I-didn't-ask-what), glanced around, and started walking quickly, rubbing my hands in front of me. It was three days before Halloween, and Chicago was getting _cold_.

Nobody has ever accused me of being bad at my job.


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

 

**Part One: Tuesday (Tyr’s day)**

**_Xenia_** (ξενία _xenía_ ), or hospitality, was an exceptionally vital social bond in Ancient Greece. It was an almost ritualized friendship formed between a host and his guest, who could previously have been strangers. The host fed and provided quarters for the guest, who was expected to repay only with gratitude.

_O I forbid you, maidens a',_   
_That wear gowd on your hair,_   
_To come or gae by Carterhaugh,_   
_For young Tam Lin is there._

As I walked, I brooded. I'd gotten good at brooding, over the past year-and-a-bit. I tucked my hands into my duster and my head down against the wind and settled in for a good long angst.

There was a whole host of shiny little problems with my new situation, first and foremost being the idea that I was going to have to kill John Marcone. Ensure his death. Whatever. The order itself wasn't particularly bothersome; frankly, on the scale of morally-despicable-orders-Mab-had-given it didn't even make the top twenty. Hell, in some people's opinions (like those of the entire Chicago PD), it might even be considered a public service. Any objections I'd once had to murdering vanilla mortals were long gone, vanished with the fire of Chichen Itza and the subsequent year and a half of bone-deep ice and pain, and Marcone wasn't even an innocent. If it were up to me, I'd be heading off to do my duty with a whistle and a smile.

But the thing was, this wasn't about me.

Ever since the Red Court, I'd been a lot less blasé about political consequences. I'd had to be. There was right and wrong, yes (however feeble my ties to the side of "right" might be these days) but there was also collateral damage, and killing Marcone would result in a metric ton of collateral damage. Marcone was a significant player not only in the supernatural community but in the normal vanilla world as well. The last thing Chicago needed right now was to be plunged into mundane as _well_ as magical gang warfare, and that was exactly what killing Marcone would mean.

Not to mention that this was the first time Mab had ever tried to settle a debt outside of Court using my services. I had no false modesty about my status within the Court: I held an _awful_ lot of Winter power, power which Mab wouldn't give away lightly. I was none too well-connected with the Chicago scene these days – Mab usually issued me assignments down in Central America or Africa, down into the tropics; warm places (I'd never been able to figure out if that was more about punishing Summer or me) – but if Mab owed Marcone _that_ big a favor, I should still have heard _something_.

Which meant either that this whole bizarre trade actually involved paying off a favor to someone else entirely, or that Mab herself really desperately wanted Marcone dead, and knew sending me to him was the only way to do it.

And where the hell was Mab getting her information, anyway? Information not about what Marcone was doing, but about what he was _going_ to do in the immediate future?

And what did she mean when she said she'd been forced?

On the other hand, it was already 5AM, and my skin was still safely covering my entrails and all of my blood. That made this officially the best day I'd had in four months.

And I was in Chicago. Not the NeverNever. Chicago. This was Chicago air I was breathing. Smog, smoke, the stench of open sewers, and all around me electric lights and signs and the sounds of _people_ , talking and laughing and shouting over the muted symphony of car horns, drifting through the air of the rush-hour morning.

I threw my head back, open to the city and the sweet, sweet, natural sun, and felt my face twist into something that might just be the first real smile I'd given in years.

And then I turned left, glanced at a street sign to get my bearings, and headed off south down Fourteenth toward one of Marcone's buildings. As long as I was allowed back into Chicago, there were some people I desperately wanted to see.

 

  
"Za Lord! Za Lord! The Za Lord is back!"

"Hi Toot!" I called happily, walking up the stairs to the (truly formidable) reinforced-steel door of Brighter Futures. "Think you can find someone to let me through the wards?"

"Sure thing, Knight Harry!" I swung my latest staff (rune-carved wood from South America) politely out of the way as Toot fluttered through the letterbox and vanished. A few minutes later, the door swung open to reveal a saggy-eyed, wild-haired, five-foot ex-cop carrying a tiny cup of coffee and a giant, exhausted grin.

I don't care about Fae glamours, White Court vampires, or the fact that I currently worked for a woman who'd once had both Spencer and Shakespeare drooling all over her icy skirttails. At that moment, Karrin Murphy was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen.

"Harry!" Within seconds, the coffee was all over the doorstep and I was being pulled into a hard hug. "Oh my God, Harry, what are you doing here?"

I laughed, and took a step back to look her over. Murph took on way too much responsibility with this place: leading the organization, leading missions, running interference with Marcone and running herself into the ground trying to do the sort of job that was never meant for vanilla mortals in the first place. It probably didn’t help that the monster problem in Chicago was clearly getting even worse than I’d suspected. I could see a couple new wounds that looked distressingly similar to my own scars.

Still, she looked good - she'd been run hard recently, clearly, but there was none of that sharp edge of desperation that had been dragging her down two years ago. In its place was good old-fashioned exhaustion. Murphy looked tired, sure, she looked bad, but it was nowhere near the same scale as _my_ kind of bad, and that thought made something fierce and sad and happy blaze through my mind.

"I'm gonna be hanging around Chicago for a while," I grinned. “Mab's got me working for Marcone.”

Murphy's eyes narrowed.

"So why aren't you working for Marcone _now_?" She'd seen Maeve come and collect me the last time I'd played hooky with friends on the clock. She had suspicions about the kind of thing that tended to happen when I disobeyed.

Of course, she'd only seen the first five minutes of a punishment that in reality lasted somewhere between six weeks and six months, NeverNever time, but I was hardly going to tell her about that. One aggravation I _didn't_ need was my friends feeling guilty whenever I snuck off to see them, and I _was not_ going to stop sneaking off to see them. Every damn time Mab sent me anywhere remotely close to continental America.

Some things, no matter what, will always be worth the cost.

I did an exaggerated double-take, looking around with wide-eyed innocence.

"You mean he's not here? Golly gee, and here I thought he owned the building. I guess I'll just have to wait around until he shows up."  
Murphy laughed, and looked a little less worried, although she was clearly nettled by my "owns-the-building" comment. It seemed a year of mutual alliance had failed to reconcile Murphy to Marcone's interference.

Good girl, Murph. I'd expected no less.

"Most of the others will still be asleep at this hour - God, what possessed you to visit a nocturnal defense squad at six in the morning? We’re all exhausted, we had the fourth attack this week last night. But if I tell them you're here, I should be able to drag most of the gang over before Marcone figures out you've arrived. Bleed for me?"

I obligingly pulled out one of Mab's knives and slit my finger, adding, "and you know I still love the Smurfs." Our previous passcode, "wearing the boots," had been changed to a once-a-week rotating series of shared memories helping to prove that each of us were really us and not Bad Things impersonating us; permanent passwords had proved too dangerous after a small-time warlock disguised as Daniel had nearly torn out Andi's throat last June. Of course, my own passwords could never be considered completely secure, since Mab had the right to read them from my brain at any given moment, but my friends were willing to make exceptions for me. I kept steeling my nerve up to tell them they shouldn't, that I wasn't worth it, but when push came to shove I knew I was weak enough - _desperate_ enough - to let them keep risking themselves.

In any case, there weren't many beings, supernatural or otherwise, still alive these days that would dare to walk around wearing my skin. I was pretty sure I'd single-handedly wiped the Formor out of most of Northern Africa, and that kind of word gets around. I was getting quite the reputation in the NeverNever. Most of the time, I tried not to think too hard about what kind of reputation it was.

I was not a monster. Barely, but still: my will was my own.

Murphy grinned. "Come on in."

"Murph," I complained, as I followed her in past the group of Einharjen lurking in the foyer, "you know you shouldn't invite me. I'm on assignment here, there's no telling what-"

She waved a hand back at me. "Leaving your magic behind the wards always makes you twitchy, and I’d rather not risk it, with the way the baddies have been melting out of the woodwork recently. Besides, Marcone wouldn't give you attack orders in here; he'd never let you get away with burning down _another_ of his buildings. Go on," she said finally, pushing me toward a door I vaguely recognized. "Sit. Drink. There's coffee inside. I'm gonna go call people."

"Hey," I called after her. "Maybe you should send a messenger out. Don't want to keep Marcone waiting, or anything."

Murph nodded solemnly, and winked. "I'll get one of the guys to walk over to Executive Priority. Make sure he stops at all the traffic lights. And to check for tails at every single corner. And to help random little old ladies cross the street."

I grinned, and she bustled off, and I was left staring at the coffee pot, wondering if Brighter Future's other employees would try to kill me if I iced the pot. Over the past year-and-a-bit, I'd kind of lost my taste for hot drinks. They made my magic twitchy.

I'd been waiting for maybe twenty minutes, slumped in one of the surprisingly-comfortable fold-out chairs and wavering between catching a nap and staying awake to wait for cold coffee, when the door finally swung open, revealing...

Well, just about everyone I loved best in the world.

Michael and Charity were first through the door, Charity balancing a squirming toddler and a picnic basket in one arm and rushing forward to envelop me in a hug with the other. A whole pack of werewolves followed, trailing loose clothing and giant smiles, bumping elbows with the rest of the Carpenter kids, and Butters came stumbling in half-asleep, Bob bouncing in a bag over his shoulder, and behind him, Murphy....

"Harry!"

"Harry!"

"Is that a new scar-"

"Oh my God, you cut your _hair_ -"

"Move over, I wanna see him!"

"Uncle Harry! Uncle Harry! Look at my sneakers-"

I groaned at Murphy from behind the giant twelve-armed hug-huddle the Carpenter kids were forming around me, and she grinned back.

"We couldn't get a hold of Mort or Forthill or Abby, but Eyes and the wolves here wanted to carpool, and then it just seemed to make sense to go stop by the Carpenters' in person to drag them along. Hope we didn't keep you waiting too long."

I noticed she didn't say anything about Thomas or Molly, and swallowed down the lump in my throat. Not mentioning Thomas was no big deal; he had largely cut himself off from my circle of friends since returning to the White Court, and Murph probably wouldn't have even thought to call him, but not mentioning Molly was a really bad sign. I hadn't heard anything from the Leanansidhe about her last time we spoke, and had, foolishly, hoped that meant things were improving for my apprentice.

I should really know better by now.

"We brought you breakfast," said Charity, pausing to put down a large hamper in the middle of the table (another two hampers, I saw, were already being disemboweled by the Alphas further down the table) "and some food to carry away with you, if your Lady permits it."

The Fae, as we all knew, were not the most accepting when it came to gifts – giving a gift to a faerie put them in your debt, and that rule sometimes extended to me now if the gift was one for Mab by proxy or if she was in a particularly bad mood.

"That won't be an issue this time," I reassured her. "In fact, I might even get to see you guys more than once, I'm gonna be staying in Chicago. Her Iciness sent me over to work for Marcone, repaying some favor." That got me some startled looks; Murphy clearly hadn't told them. From their faces, I didn't get the sense it was a particularly welcome surprise.

"I wonder what the Baron wants with you," said Billy, sounding slightly apprehensive.

“Meh,” I shrugged. “Probably just more Formor-killing. Murphy said herself they were getting bad lately, and the Courts-" by which I mostly meant 'me' "-have already chased 'em out of pretty much everywhere _but_ here.”

“Yeah, maybe…”

“C’mon, what else could it be? _Everyone_ in Faerie hires me out to kill their monsters these days – usually through the Queen, not personally, but still. You told me yourself they’ve totally overrun the place, Murph, and you guys all look dead on your feet, it’s about time Marcone got in some outside help-”

“Harry,” said Murphy. “You know how, a while ago, we had a conversation about your mile-wide blind spots?”

I dug around in my memory. I vaguely remembered her saying something about Molly’s crush on me over beers and food during those last days before everything went to hell, but the details eluded me.

“...I think so? At Mac's. We were talking about Molly.”

She nodded.

“Yeah. Well, Marcone is one of those blind spots. You can't see it, I know, because you're the same way about him half the time, but when it comes to you he gets kind of...scary. _Focused_. I don't know what he wants with you, but I know he wants something. I’m just…I’m not sure it’s Formor.”

Charity and Michael were having one of those whole married-conversation-with-their-eyes things.

“Harry,” Michael said slowly, breaking away, “You should be careful, dealing with Marcone. Over the past few weeks, he's had people watching our children.”

Ice- no, not ice, I was familiar with ice, ice was goddamn _comforting_ nowadays – sheer bloody _fire_ flooded my veins.

Nobody besides me, Ebenezer, and the Carpenters knew, but Michael and Charity's newest adopted kid was actually my own daughter, Maggie. I didn't see her - the one and only time Michael tried to suggest bringing her to visit me, I nearly blew the windows out of Murphy's front room. I didn't talk about her. I didn't even let myself _think_ about her when I was in the NeverNever. If anybody knew she was my daughter, my enemies would try to use her to get to me, and Chichen Itza had shown me and the whole world and the now-dead Red Court of vampires exactly how terribly, horribly effective that would be.

Never again.

If Marcone knew – if Marcone so much as _suspected_ what Maggie meant to me...

For the first time in nearly six months, I felt the blanket of numb, dull horror that had settled between me and the world break, and real terror flooded in.

It was one thing to walk into battle day after day expecting to be flayed and wrecked and tortured; it was one thing knowing my life and my body were not my own anymore. It was another thing entirely to think about my daughter in danger.

If Marcone did anything, _anything_ to threaten Maggie, I wouldn't kill him, regardless of what Mab might do to me for disobeying a direct order, regardless of the fact that I didn’t know if I even _could_ disobey. If Marcone hurt my daughter, I'd force him to live - I'd make him _immortal_ , just so I could hurt him again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again-

"Well, whatever he wants, you should hurry up and eat, Harry," said Georgia, thwacking her fellow Alphas out of the way to grab a second bagel. "Murphy’s messenger should have nearly made it to Main Street by now; traffic’s pretty light on Tuesday mornings."

"Actually, Ms. Borden," came a cool, familar voice from the doorway, "your messenger is currently in the business district, being waylaid and detained by one of my elderly female agents."

Everybody in the room froze. I looked up to see Baron Johnny Marcone framed in the doorway, flanked by Hendricks, Gard, and Childs, dressed in full-on commando gear with a huge sinister-looking black duffel slung over one shoulder.

"Knight Dresden. I came as soon as the Einherjaren alerted me. I'm afraid we don't have very much time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, I'd like to give a HUGE thank-you and apology to everyone who's still watching this fic after the last three-month hiatus. I can promise regular updates from here on out - the first draft is written, so I have no excuses now - and I can only say that I am most sincerely sorry for leaving you all hanging for so long. 
> 
> Second, please turn your attentions to the updated tags and archive warnings. 
> 
> Third, returning readers should note that all of the work that has been posted thus far, both here and (as one lovely reader was kind enough to point out) over on the kinkmeme has undergone minor but plot-relevant changes.
> 
> ...I think that's all. Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

  _Then cover me wi your green mantle,  
And hide me out o sight_

 "Hiiiiii, John!" I trilled, standing up and throwing my arms wide, trying to ignore the pounding thup-thup-thup of my heartbeat in my ears. _Maggie. Don't think about Maggie_. "Package for you! Mab didn't have time to wrap me properly, but I'm sure you can dig up a bow from _somewhere_ around he-"

I stepped forward, and got a closer look at his face.

Hells Bells, Marcone looked _terrible_. If Murphy had been tired, he looked like he'd been chewed up, spat out, and digested. There were new scars slashed across his handsome face and hands, acid burns framing his money-green eyes, patches of white springing up through his salt-and-pepper hair, and underneath the duffel and Kevlar and guns, I was pretty sure he'd lost weight, hard middle-age muscles giving way to something lean and desperate.

I was beginning to see why Mab said I wouldn't have to work too hard to kill him. He looked like...he looked like Susan had, like _I_ had, in the days leading up to Chichen Itza. He looked like a man with nothing left to lose.

"Stars and stones, Marcone, what happened to you?"

He ignored me, stepping inside and running his eyes quickly over the room, then gesturing to Gard, who immediately went to the duffel and started pulling out supplies: little plastic baggies of herbs, chalk, birdseed, a couple of horseshoes, and several tiny bottles of what I sincerely hoped wasn't blood, all with neat little labels in what looked like Old Norse. I watched the bagels vanish under spell ingredients with a mental sigh of regret. Mab fed me well, but even the best fairy fare in the world couldn't come close to touching Charity's home baking. 

Marcone glanced around at the rest of the room, most of whom were staring at him in open hostility. Hope and Harry Carpenter had huddled behind their mother, shrinking wide-eyed away from the guns in Hendricks's and Marcone's hands.

“Where are Mr. Lindquist, Ms. Ash, and Ms. Molly Carpenter?”

“Couldn't get hold of them,” Murphy said tightly, scowling at Marcone as if daring him to comment. He just nodded, seemingly satisfied, and turned to Hendricks.

“Check to see whether Mr. Raith's car has arrived yet.”

“What's going on, Marcone?” I said, trying not to look as confused as I felt. “You trying to join the reunion, or something? 'Cause I'm pretty sure we’re gonna need more food, your Valkyrie over there just ruined the cream cheese-”

He ignored me again, turning instead to Michael. "Send the children home."

My blood ran cold.

Marcone seemed pretty determined to get me and everybody I cared about together in the same room, and whatever he wanted with us, I was willing to bet it wasn't a welcome-back party with streamers and cake. And I knew, probably better than anyone present, that if Marcone was going to try anything violent, the first thing he would do was get the kids somewhere safe. On the other hand, if he _did_ intend to kill us all, I wanted the kids out of the way more than anybody. And Michael and Charity. More than I cared about my own life, I wanted the Carpenter family _safe_.

It wasn't safe for me to see my daughter. I could never be the family she deserved. But Michael and Charity were Maggie's family now, and she'd already lost her first one. If I had anything to say about it, she would _never_ lose another.

Even if it meant standing up to my newest master.

I swallowed down the automatic terror that welled up in my throat at the idea of disobedience, and set my staff meaningfuly on the floor.

“No.”

Marcone's eyes narrowed as his gaze flickered over me for the first time. “Excuse me?”

“ _No,_ Marcone. If the kids leave, everybody else leaves with them. I won't have my friends risking themselves for the likes of you.” His eyes closed briefly, and a look flashed across his face that could have been either exasperation or pain.

“Dresden. Your Queen does not own you right now. I do, for the next seventy-two hours-” Three days? No one had said anything to me about a time limit “-and you have been charged to obey my orders as her own. Do you really want to know what kind of orders I am prepared to give you?”

He didn't say it like a question. He said it like a fact, hard and fast and totally emotionless.

He didn't sound like he was joking.

It was hard to make myself remember, over the glowing relief of being outside the NeverNever and surrounded by mortals, but Marcone was actually more dangerous to me than Mab at the moment. Mab and I had an arrangement. It was dangerous and precarious and it sucked, but we both knew that the power she held over me wasn't entirely one-sided. Yeah, she told me what to do, and I pretty much always jumped to it and smiled nicely and asked how high, but she'd sworn me an oath before I started my knighthood, and she would never order me to hurt someone I cared about. She couldn't. She'd promised, and Fae couldn't lie.

I had no such guarantee with Marcone. Yeah, he was going to die soon, probably within the next three days if he was right about Mab’s time limit, but just _thinking_ about the kinds of things he could do- or, worse, make _me_ do- during that time-

Huh. Now _there's_ a thought.

"Hey, scumbag," I said, leaning casually back on my staff, and waited until his money-green gaze flickered back toward (if not meeting) my eyes. Close enough. "I can't kill myself, 'cause Mab told me not to and it didn't take last time. But if you ever, _ever_ try to order me to hurt one of my friends, I'll burn off all my limbs."

Marcone went absolutely still.

On either side of him, Hendricks's and Childs' gazes focused in on me like lasers. Behind me, I could hear Murphy give a sharp intake of breath. " _Harry_ -"

"Mab'll grow 'em back," I reassured her, keeping my eyes locked on Marcone. "Nothing I haven't done before. But it'll take a whole lot longer than three days, and I doubt I’ll be able to do you much good in the meantime. And _you_ get to explain to Her Highness at the end of it exactly why you're returning a damaged Knight. I doubt she'll be pleased."

She'd be even less pleased with me, but Marcone didn't need to know that.

I looked around and blinked. Everybody was _staring_.

"What?"

"I- I have no intention of ordering you to hurt anyone, Harry," said Marcone. His voice sounded weirdly hoarse. “Very well. Your other friends can leave too, if it makes you more comfortable.” He glanced around the room. “In fact, this might be better managed if everyone were to give us a few minutes alone-”

"No," said Murphy.

Marcone and I turned to stare at her. She shoved her way in front of me, knuckles going white around where she was gripping her gun.

"No, we're not leaving. Not until we know what you're planning to do to Harry."

Michael and Charity shifted closer to me on either side, putting the children behind them, eyes fixed on Marcone and his men. Almost casually, Billy and Georgia and the rest of the wolves pushed themselves up from chairs and away from the walls, dropping their bagels, fingers drifting towards dress ties and shirt hems.

"Guys," I said uneasily, “I'm not sure this is such a great idea-"

Marcone stared Murphy down, assessing, then turned around to look at everyone else clustered around me, and snorted.

"I suppose this _was_ probably inevitable. Very well, stay with Dresden. But I'm afraid I'm still going to have to ask the Carpenter children to leave the building. The matters I have to discuss are highly sensitive and possibly dangerous for those involved.” His voice turned softer as he turned to look at Charity, and her hand tightened on my shoulder. "Please, Ms. Carpenter. For their safety and ours. They will only be a few thin walls away."

I didn't believe him, not completely. It was about even odds that he was going to blow us all up, or, more likely, have Gard try some thrall-spell-thing the second the door closed. But if he _was_ going to make a move on us, it _would_ be better to have the kids safely out of the way, and even if the worst happened and Marcone killed us all, at least Maggie's new siblings would survive.

And if he tried to lay a _finger_ on Michael or Charity Carpenter in my presence, then orders or no orders, it would be the last thing he ever did.

Charity stared him down, but eventually nodded.

“Fine. Go on," she said, nudging Daniel. He scowled at her - at twenty-one, Daniel was way too old to be treated like a child, but he went quietly enough once Michael put a hand on his shoulder. Marcone nodded to Childs. Childs nodded back, and pushed past Butters to unplug the coffee maker (Butters made a wounded noise) and shove it into the center of the room, crouching down to dip his fingers in the blood-vial and start inscribing a neat string of runes along the wall. More than one of us startled - apparently, I wasn't the only one who hadn't realized that Childs knew magic. Billy glared suspiciously, sidling away.

“What's he doing? I thought you were going to explain.”

"Patience, Mr. Borden. Mr. Childs is warding the room against eavesdroppers." Marcone's voice sounded strained; he still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I fumed a little, then mentally shrugged. He could work through whatever issues he had on his own time.

Since I didn't have anything better to do, I dug another of the bagels out from under the pile and sat back down to watch Childs carry on with his rune-things. It wasn't any kind of magic I was familiar with, and I doubt I could figure it out without knowing at least some of the symbology – he seemed to be working on a totally different system from the wizardly runes I was familiar with – but it was weirdly peaceful to watch.

And as I watched, I realized I could feel something weird happening. The veins of ice running up through my magic - Mab's power, locked and woven into me so deeply that most days I couldn't tell where it stopped and my magic began - started to shrivel, shrinking down until nothing remained but a single thread dangling out from the left side of my chest. Prickling heat coursed its way up both my arms, slowly waking nerves that I'd long since thought dead, my mundane senses growing out to fill the space where the omnipresent, alien, shifting awareness of Faerie had been. At first I couldn't believe it was happening - _no_ wards could be that powerful, not powerful enough to shut out something _inside_ me - and then I quickly stopped worrying and just sat back to enjoy it.

If I pretended real hard, I could almost imagine I was free again.

Stars and stones, I'd forgotten what it was like to feel _warm_.

After a while, it occurred to me that I could probably drink a cup of hot coffee now, so I went over and grabbed one, using a wisp of soulfire to steam up my own cup and Butters's. He gave me a pathetically grateful smile.

Huh. Soulfire. I hadn’t really expected to still have that one in me, after some of the things I’d done this last year, but it was a nice discovery.

After about twenty minutes of waiting, Thomas was escorted to the door by one of the Einherjaren. He sauntered past Marcone and Childs (now busily chanting and scattering birdseed, rice, wheat, and millet in seemingly random clumps across the carpet) without blinking so much as an eyelid, pausing to punch my arm and steal my coffee on his way to lean coolly against the far wall.

I rubbed at the bruise he’d left surreptitiously, and smiled a little as I reached for a replacement cup. _Brothers_. It had been too long.

At last, Childs finished the chanting and millet-tossing, dusted his hands off, and strode over to take a post inside the doorway, gun held at the ready. Hendricks and Gard took up similar poses like bookends on each side of the door outside. Finally, Childs reached over and swung the door shut, pressing the last of the horseshoes, traced over and over with runes, ends-up against the surface. It stuck in the middle, humming, about five feet off the floor, without any visible adhesive holding it up, and all the ambient noise from the corridor went suddenly silent.

Marcone looked over at me, and finally, _finally,_ met my eyes.

As I looked back at him, I felt something tense and worried unlock in my chest. Chicago had changed - _I_ had changed - a lot in the past two years, enough to be in some ways unrecognizable, and it was bizarrely reassuring to look into those familiar green eyes and know that Marcone, at least, was still the same scumbag I knew and despised. The same daredevil bastard who’d schemed to trap me in a soulgaze all those years ago.

“Dresden. How solid is your connection to Faerie?”

The question surprised me, and I nearly choked on the last of my (hot, gloriously luxuriously scalding hot) coffee scrambling to answer.

“Feels like it's barely there.”

If I hadn’t been watching him closely, I would have missed the way Marcone let go of some of the tension he'd been carrying, shoulders drooping forward and right hand tightening and loosening reflexively over one of the Glocks strapped to his belt. He swept his gaze over at the rest of the room, and said, once, not angry or threatening but absolutely, frighteningly calm: “if there is anyone in this room with any doubt about his or her willingness to make sacrifices on Dresden’s behalf, I ask that you leave now.”

No one moved.

"I have brought you all here because I am going to free Harry Dresden from the Winter Queen."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, there is a reason I changed this, but y'all won't need to worry about what it was for a good 20 chapters or so. :) Just take note of the fact that Childs did the warding, not Gard!


	4. Chapter 4

  _There's nane that gaes by Carterhaugh_  
 _But they leave him a wad,_  
 _Either their rings, or green mantles,_  
 _Or else their maidenhead._

Immediately, I felt my heart rate jump about a mile a minute. _Free me_ \- you couldn't _do_ that. It wasn't possible _._ Knighthood's retirement plan happened at the sharp end of a blade.

But _if it was_ -

"Don't say things like that!" I snapped at Marcone, suddenly so furious I had a brief, vivid vision of ripping his throat out to shut him up, not even with _magic_ , just feeling his skin tear. "This isn't a fucking joke!"

"Of course it isn't a joke," he said, returning my gaze steadily. "I have a plan that I believe will result in your complete, unreserved freedom from Winter. I need to double-check a number of points with you and your allies to verify whether it will be workable given the present conditions, but I currently entertain every hope of success. You will be free within the next three days."

"How?" I breathed. My hands were shaking; I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from his. He was lying, the scum, of course, and when I found out how he was lying I'd tear out his fucking tongue. He _had_ to be lying.

But _if he wasn't_ -

I couldn't think like that. It hurt too much.

"Fuck how, _why_ ," said Murphy, frowning. "What the hell do you get out of it? You don't need to trade Harry any favors; you've got him already, body and soul, for the next seventy-two hours. What's your angle, Marcone? What do you want?"

“Who _cares_ what he wants,” I snapped. “I'm telling you, this...whatever he's planning, it's just not possible. I _am_ Mab's, blood, breath, and bone. There's no way to break a contract like that, not without killing me, and if he tells you otherwise, he’s lying, he’s planning something, he- he’s going to get you all _killed_ , when Mab finds out-”

He was insane. He was insane, and wrong, and he was putting my friends in danger just by talking about this.

Georgia stood up, in a slinky, animal way that drew attention to the fact that she had muscles lurking under all the tall-and-willowy, and cleared her throat pointedly.

“Marcone.”

He finally tore his eyes from mine to look at her, and I felt the trapped still feeling in my chest subside a little. My hands were still shaking; I tucked them under the corners of my new coat so the others wouldn’t see.

Mab had made me that coat, after I completed the Puerto Rico assignment. It was scrupulously exact in its duplication of my original duster – Susan’s duster – but somehow sleeker, cleaner, more elegant; like the original, it was bulletproof, and it never tore or ripped or seemed to get dirty, no matter what kind of situations I dragged it into.

I had never asked what kind of skin it was made of. I didn’t want to know.

I really, really hated that coat.

"I want your service. Not just your service; your loyal, willing service. I want each of you to sign a contract of employment with me, and to swear me an oath of fealty under your true Names.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it; it was too ridiculous.

"Yeah, and then maybe after that you've got a bridge or two to sell them." Marcone ignored me, instead looking around at everyone else's faces, each displaying the same skepticism that was painted across my own.

“Forgive my blunt speaking, but it hardly seems like any of you are in a position to refuse. I have done extensive research on this subject, and I guarantee my method is the only hope any of you have of breaking Dresden’s bond with the Winter Queen while he remains alive.” He let that sink in for a second, then offered a gritty not-quite-smile. “I am aware how much Mr. Dresden’s welfare means to you all. Be assured it is of equal, if not greater, value to Mab. If I am to free him, I demand compensation for the danger I court. My ongoing use of your services in future seems a more than fair exchange-”

“It's _not_ fair,” I interrupted, slamming a hand down on the table, “nothing about this is fair, and you’re putting everyone here in danger by even discussing it! If you don’t back off-”

“Dresden,” said Marcone, in a voice of rapidly fraying patience. “Much as I know you hate admitting weakness-”

“Fuck weakness, I’m the Winter Knight, I could turn you into snowflakes.”

His eyes narrowed.

“And I could order you, apparently, to burn off your own arms. Tell me, Harry, is there something you enjoy about the current state of affairs? Because unless you _want_ to remain Mab’s plaything for the rest of your natural life-”

The mention of Mab’s name hit me like a shot to the gut, hard and hot with anger.

“Of _course_ I don’t want to be her- her plaything! I _hate_ Winter. I hate it more than I’ve ever hated anything in my life, but I knew what I was getting into when I made my decision. I _chose_ this. I did what I had to, and now I have to live with it-”

"I'll swear," said Michael.

Both of us shut up.

“Michael,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. "You do understand that what he’s saying is actually insane, right? It doesn't matter _what_ he wants to trade you. You’re not going to give him anything, because that rescue he’s promising _doesn't work_.”

Marcone opened his mouth to start arguing again, but Michael got there first.

"Whether or not it sounds insane matters little," said Michael. "If there is even a chance that this man is telling the truth about his plans to free you from your burden, Harry, then yes, I will swear. I will swear gladly."

He settled back in his chair smiling and took Charity's hand. She frowned, and gave first me, and then Marcone a long, considering look, but eventually, she nodded. “Me too.”

I gaped at them.

"You- you're going to _sign up with a mob boss_ just because there's a _chance_ he might save me." I couldn't decide whether to be honored or appalled. "Michael, we don’t know anything about what Marcone’s planning, or if this will actually work, or what he wants you to do for him. You _do_ realize that anything he's got you doing will probably be illegal, right? What if he asks you to hurt people? To kill them?”

“I remember fighting alongside Mr. Marcone against the Denarians,” said Michael calmly. “I know he is an honorable man. I am sure he understands that I can allow no man’s orders to come between me and my God."

Wow. Subtle threat, reminder of past debt, and message of unconditional support, all in three short sentences. Some of Mab's High Court could take lessons.

"I understand perfectly," said Marcone, once again a picture of civility as he nodded politely to Michael. "In any case, your duties, were you to swear, would be almost entirely what they have been up to now: defending this city against those supernatural beings who threaten its safety. I would require none of you to abandon your current jobs, and I would attempt to interfere in your everyday lives as little as was necessary to ensure your comfort and protection.” His eyes glittered as he looked over at me. “You should remember this offer, Mr. Dresden. I gave it to you once before."

He had. I'd burned it. I'd thrown it in his face. It had felt too much like slavery.

The irony, I know.

" 'Almost' entirely?" said Murphy suspiciously.

"Well," said Marcone. "You would be better paid - or, in some cases, _actually_ paid. And probably substantially better organized. I can guarantee that any enemies I send you out to fight against will be ones you would have opposed eventually regardless.”

Thomas, seemingly coming to a decision, unpeeled himself from the far wall and walked up to the table, staring Marcone straight in the eyes.  
" _If_ you can save Harry," he said quietly, "I'll swear. I'll conquer the White Court for you, I'll kneel down and lick your fucking boots if that's your pleasure. But I want him freed first, and I want proof you can do it."

A brief not-quite-smile flickered across Marcone’s face.

"Thank you, Mr. Raith. That won't be immediately necessary."

"We'll swear," said Billy, jerking his head around at the werewolves. "Or- I'll swear. I want to see Harry free."

"We all will," said Georgia. The other Alphas nodded.

"I'll swear," said Butters. "I still say we were stupid for not accepting more of his help in the first place."

Murphy stared at Marcone for long time, but eventually nodded. "Fine. If-if you can help him." She looked kind of like I felt: dumbstruck, and terrified, and trying not to hope.

Marcone didn’t even glance at her, just turned aside and started pulling stacks of carefully-stapled packets of paper out from the duffel bag.

“You have an hour’s time to peruse these contracts. If you wish to contact a lawyer, there is a clause – page 36, I believe – allowing for further negotiations after the immediate crisis has been resolved, and dissolving any and all obligations on behalf of all contracted parties should Mr. Dresden fail to be freed within the next seventy-two hours. Your oaths can wait until after Dresden's Knighthood is terminated, as a further gesture of good faith-”

I lunged forward to slam my hand over the nearest packet before Murphy could reach it, trying desperately to catch somebody's eye.

“You guys,” I pleaded. “Don’t do this. C’mon, Murphy, Michael- You know Marcone, you _know_ you can’t trust him. _Please_ -”

Nobody listened. Billy and Andi were already reaching forward to page through their contracts - Thomas, who’d reached for a pen without even bothering to glance through the first page of writing, had already handed his back to Marcone. With all of us seated around the dilapidated conference table, shuffling papers, the whole scene looked almost disturbingly normal. If it hadn’t been for Childs’s runes and birdseed, we might have been any group of corporate employees.

It shouldn’t have looked normal. I was watching my friends sign their lives away.

After the hour was up, and the last of the contracts had finally vanished into the depths of the duffel (Charity was the last one to finish, barely under the deadline; she'd gone over first hers and then Michael’s line by line, making notes in the margins), Marcone leaned forward and steepled his fingers at us across the table, looking for all the world like some smug corporate CEO.

“Tell me. Are any of you acquainted with the Ballad of Tam Lin?”

Pretty much everybody, including me, simply looked baffled, but I heard Will and Marci give out quiet gasps, and Butters shot bolt upright in his chair, slopping coffee all over Charity’s hamper.

“What?” I asked them.  “What is it?” Butters was beaming, eyes flashing with a glee I had previously only seen inspired by polka. He didn’t even bother to wipe up the coffee dripping down his nose as he leaned forward to explain.

“Tam Lin is a folk ballad about a warrior of the Faerie Queen, who was freed after being pulled off a horse during the faerie Hunt by his mortal, pregnant lover, carried out of fairyland while he turned into a bunch of hostile animals, and thrown into a lake.”

I burst out laughing – loud, open guffaws into the room's sudden silence.

“There is no _possible_ way that would work.”

“Why not?” said Marci. “My God, it’s obvious- I’m so sorry, Harry, I don’t know why we never thought of this- I never thought it could actually be _real_ -”

“It’s not real, it’s _crazy_ ,” I said, still chuckling. “Look. Guys. Even if there _were_ some pregnant girl willing to fight her way through the Wild Hunt to come get me – and the Winter Court doesn’t usually ride with the Hunt, just so you know, so you’d have to summon it yourselves – and fight her way past the worst of all the Winter and Wyldfae and out of the NeverNever while I was having - what was it, ‘hostile transformations’? - it still wouldn't be enough to get me out of a Knighthood. And,” I added, a horrible suspicion beginning to build in the back of my mind, “if you tried it, Her Iciness would have the legal right to kill you all, because you’d have tried to mess with an Accorded being’s property. No cats-paws or contracts or sour deals necessary. You’d all be _dead_.”

“Actually, it is perfectly permissible for a mortal to lay claim to a member of the Faerie Courts during a Hunt,” Marcone said mildly. “Difficult, certainly, and subject to various ritual prerequisites depending on the standing of the Courtier in question, but legal. Just as the Wild Hunt rides out to claim the lives of mortals, so any mortal is permitted to stake equal claim on any rider.”

That...actually made sense. A lot of sense. I had no proof that it was true, of course, as I'd never ridden in a Hunt myself, but I could see how it would work; it was the sort of thing the Faerie Courts lived for. Balance. Trade for trade. But I could equally see why no one had tried it before now: the Wild Hunt is deadly.

The Hunt rides out with a single function: to kill everything and anything in its path. The only possible escape is to join it – and if you joined, you could become locked into the Hunt for eternity, riding beside the dead souls of fellow Hunters, following the flesh-eating Fae like one of Lea’s dogs and dining on the flesh of the Hunters' victims. Last time the hunt was summoned – on Darkhallow, nearly a decade ago by now – it had torn a swath of destruction through the city worse than most mid-level hurricanes. No mortal could withstand it. No _immortal_ could withstand it, and the thought of my friends in the path of the Hunt made my stomach flood with icy fear.

“That could work,” said Georgia, sounding excited. “That could actually work. If you got enough steel-jacketed bullets-”

Murphy and Thomas and Andi were all nodding. Even Charity looked interested.

“We could figure out which way the Hunt was coming from, set up an ambush-”

“We’ll need help- maybe Sanya-”

“I could call Lara-”

“This isn’t going to work!” I snapped.

They all turned to look at me as one, expressions ranging from annoyance to vague, innocent disbelief, and I tried not to clench my fists in frustration. “Look. It doesn’t matter whether it’s _legal_ or not. The Winter Knight isn't like some Court position you can step down from; it's what I _am_. Mab _owns_ me, blood and breath and bone, and that sort of bond can only be broken by death-”

“Harry," Michael broke in gently, "stop worrying. Everything is going to work out all right.”

I gaped at him, and he smiled back at me, hope and faith glowing out of his warm brown eyes.

“How can you believe that?”

“Because I prayed for this.”

“…You what?”

“Saturday night, there was a storm outside our house and Ma-” he glanced at my face, and at Marcone, and changed tone abruptly. “-our adopted daughter started crying.”

I closed my eyes. It was dangerous, giving me this kind of information. Even indirectly, even in front of my closest friends, even inside Childs’s circle where Mab couldn’t hear. My mind wasn’t my own anymore, and that held true for my memories as well. But I drank up the words like they were everything I’d never known I wanted.

I fixed the picture in my head as he spoke: my daughter, the tears on her face, the storm, and as much as it hurt to imagine her crying, I felt warmth spreading out from the image, a little glow deep down inside where even Mab couldn’t touch, a reminder: no matter what happened at Chichen Itza, no matter what I went through in Winter, it had been worth it. My daughter was alive.

“She was terrified of the thunder; Charity and I couldn’t calm her down. I remembered the way you were so good at soothing little Harry and the others when you visited, how kind you were that Halloween with the fireworks, and I thought of you out alone raising storms in the dark while we slept sheltered safe in a warm home, and I’m afraid I lost my temper.

“I asked God why you had to be sent out to suffer for your sins. I asked Him whether you couldn’t do more good here at home with us, and I prayed to Him to send you some aid. A higher power, to protect you, as you had protected us. And now, in His grace and wisdom, He has overlooked my anger, and answered my prayer.”

“A higher power,” I said, bitterly. “Hell of a way to describe our Baron.”

“Grace can walk in many forms,” said Michael. “But I was actually referring to the chance God has given to me – to all of us – to help you. To repay, in some small part, the help you have given all of us over the years. I will not abandon that chance, no matter how small it may be. I cannot.”

Over beside Marcone, Thomas had completely dropped all of his cool, disinterested, defensive masks, and was looking at me with honest, human curiosity. This was the first time in two years I had seen him looking like something other than a Raith of the White Court; like one of his alluring, passionless sisters. I hurt to think what this kind of hope must be doing to him – to all of them.

_Fucking_ Marcone.

“Why won’t you believe we can save you?”

“Because _it's not possible_ -”

"Assume for the moment," interrupted Marcone, flat and dangerous. "that you are bound to obey my orders, and will be helping us save yourself whether you want to or not. My time is too valuable to waste on any more of your pointless theatrics."

Mab was going to slaughter them. All of them, and there wasn’t a thing I could do.

“You don’t understand,” I said helplessly. “She’ll _kill_ you. All of you. And it isn’t even going to work.”

Murphy pinned me with an angry blue-eyed glare.

“You gave up the right to ask us not to risk our lives for you when you sold Mab your free will and your right to say no.”

I stared back at her in raw shock. Murphy never talked about the Knight thing. Never. Unlike the Alphas and the Carpenters and Butters and Thomas, who all seemed to want to drag me into Talking About Things every couple of months, she had never once verbally acknowledged the change my life had taken. And that she chose to do so _now_ -

Ye gods and little fishes. _Murphy_.

“We're going to save you," she continued, voice gentling. "We're protecting you, Harry, and you can shove your stupid macho instincts where the sun doesn't shine.”

Hope. That's what was shining out from her eyes, from all of their eyes, looking at me. Marcone had given them hope, and I- I couldn't afford hope. I couldn't afford to believe that this was real. I knew exactly how badly they'd be let down when this failed.

I couldn’t let them throw their lives away like this. Not for my sake.

“Harry,” said Butters quietly, from over by the wall, “ _please_.”

“Harry,” said Marcone, “cooperate.”

And that was it. An order. There was nothing I could do.

“Proof,” I insisted, settling back down. “You _promised_ proof. If you can’t prove that this is going to work, you have to let them go.”

Marcone leaned back in his chair and smirked.

“Mr Butters. If you would be so kind as to bring out your skull?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: trigger warnings for discussion of rape. Apart from that, general warnings for Bob.

_Them that has gotten young Tam Lin  
Has gotten a stately groom! _

                            [punctuation courtesy of Bob]

"Used-to-be-Boss!" Bob chirped, as soon as Butters unzipped the top of his bag. "Good to see you again! Wait, what are you doing back in Chicago? Are you on vacation? Oooh, you must have been _extra good_ if she's giving you vacation-"

"Good to see you too, Bob," I said, grinning a little. Marcone looked worryingly unsurprised to hear Bob talking, and I was trying really hard not to think too hard about just why that might be, but across the room, Childs’s face had gone all white and shocked. "And I'm not here on vacation. Mab sold me to Marcone.”

"Ooooh, Mr. Sexy Mafia Boss? _Really_? Are you _servicing_ him, too?”

I think Marcone may have sort of kind of possibly choked a little.

“Um, Bob,” said Butters uneasily, “it's not like that-”

Butters had only owned Bob for about two years now. He had yet to learn the futility of making Bob see reason.

I talked over both of them. “Marcone's got a ritual he wants to perform, Bob. A ritual he thinks could free me. I just want you to make sure that it's kosher.”

“Oh. Okay, sure, ex-Boss, no problem.”

Marcone leaned forward. Sometime in the interim, he'd managed to acquire a pen and a legal pad from the depths of the duffle, as well as a small piece of ink-scrawled parchment.

"First, I want you to tell me everything you know about this rite."

He leaned forward to push the piece of parchment across the table for Bob to look at. There were runes scrawled all up and down both sides, most of which I recognized, grouped carefully into patterns: written magic. I felt a brief, phantom tingle as it passed me by; echoes of power. Whatever that spell was, it was _old_.

Bob's eyes abruptly stopped whirling and lasered in on Marcone. I swear they started to glow brighter.

"You're going to make Harry perform ritual sex magic?"

Marcone leaned back with a satisfied smile. "So it works."

" _You’re_ going to make Harry perform _ritual sex magic_?”

“Apparently.” I scowled.

“Give me a moment here, please, I’m processing. This may possibly be the best day of my entire existence. You’re going to make _Harry_ perform ritual _sex magic_ -”

“Bob!”

“Hey, Harry, can I watch? Pleaeeeeaaase?”

“BOB!”

“Please please please please? I'll give you the recipe for any potion you've ever dreamed of making, I'll delete all my memories of Susan _and_ Molly naked, I'll-”

“ _No._ Shut _up_ , Bob, I- waaaaaiiit a minute, how in _hell_ did you get memories of Molly naked!?”

“What about you, new-Boss? Will _you_ let me? Please? I’ll get your mom off your case, I’ll brainwash your supervisors so you never have to work the late shift again, I’ll help you seduce Andi and Marci _and_ Georgia, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty, please-”

“I, um,” said Butters. His whole face had turned tomato-colored. He did not look even a hundredth as humiliated by this conversation as I felt.

“Come _on_ , Harry, Waldo, pleeeeeaaaase-”

“Be quiet,” said Marcone.

Bob shut up.

I glowered. "You shut up for Marcone, but not me? Where's the loyalty, Bob?"

"Fuck loyalty, he's going to have you perform _ritual sex magic_! I mean, I knew Mab had loosened you up from that show two years back, but I figured she'd have to hold you down and rape you at least another billion times before you’d get with the program. You’re getting _laid_ , Harry, I'm so _proud_ of you-"

“Bob, SHUT UP!!!”

In the ringing silence, I realized that the whole room was staring at me, and felt a new kind of ice, cold and horrible, fall like a lump down into my gut. Michael and Charity had some kind of awful pity shining out from their faces, and I could feel Marcone’s gaze on me from across the room like a shiver down my neck, his eyes colder and harder and farther away than I’d ever seen them before.

I didn’t want to deal with this. I didn’t want to _think_ about it. Yeah, sure, Mab and Maeve liked to play with me sometimes (Maeve more than Mab), but from the way they were looking at me, it wasn’t like- Bob had to go and say it like- they were all going to think-

I didn’t want to deal with it.

"Bob," I said, and surprised even myself with how calm my voice came out, in the sudden (too loud) silence, "could you please not talk about sex for a while?”

“Sure thing, used-to-be-Boss. What else do you want to talk about?”

I opened my mouth, realized I couldn’t think of anything to say, and closed it again.

“I…not that.”

Marcone leaned forward. Whatever emotion had passed over him, he shook it off efficiently, visibly retreating into businesslike indifference. “I, for one, would like to double-check: the ritual works?”

“Oh. That. Yeah, sure, it'll work. If you can fight your way through the Wild Hunt, drag him through running water, keep Mab from stopping or killing you all, and actually make Harry have sex with someone. That last one will probably be hardest. Or _hardest_ , if you know what I-”

“But _how_?” I interrupted, staring at Bob. “Dragging me off some horse – or even winning me through combat – won't change the fact that I'm promised to Mab. Winter Knight is a part of me. I _am_ Hers. There's no way to cancel that out, no way to trade for it. There is literally _nothing_ powerful enough to break my bond to Mab, except my death on the Stone Table.”

“Actually, there _is_ , Harry, and you know it,” Bob piped up. I stared back at him, dumbfounded, and he made an irritated noise. “C'mon, think. What's the one way ordinary vanilla mortals are stronger than Fae?”

“Um.” I blinked. My first thought, _we have iron weapons_ , was probably not the answer Bob was looking for. “...Free will?”

Bob snorted. “Not only has Mab got free will, she's using it to destroy yours, and doing a damn good job of it. Nah, as far as free will goes, the Fae hit just as hard and heavy as humans. Guess again.”

I blinked. I couldn't think of anything.

“Love,” said Charity suddenly, clutching at Michael’s hand. “That's it, isn't it? God-given love.” Bob's eyelights whirled in amusement.

“Well, if you wanna be _sappy_ about it, sure. Love. Despair. Hate. _Emotion_. You guys all _feel_ things, and Fae can't understand or control feelings. Strong emotions bond you humans to each other, like bits of your auras mixing. Sex can be used to cement that transfer, sometimes permanently – Mr. White Court there could tell you _allllll_ about how _that_ works – but it’s not about lust. Faeries can _do_ lust. But they can’t do love.”

“Maeve once called love madness,” I said, remembering. “She said- love, and anger, and-”

“Emotions, yeah.” Bob’s skull nodded up and down. “They're the one bond the Sidhe have no way of breaking. And if you've got a bond that's strong enough, you could use it to tear Harry away from Mab's hold.”

Marcone leaned forward. “In that case, would I be correct in assuming that pregnancy is not actually a ritual prerequisite?”

“Yep. Although it sure would help; mother-of-your-children’s one of the most powerful human bonds you can get. But the main thing’s the feelings. Just have Harry fuck someone who wants, needs, and loves him, pledge himself to them, drag him away from the Hunt and through running water, and you’re golden. Pass Go, collect one wizard-in-distress, shining horse and armor optional.”

“Interesting,” said Marcone, scribbling furiously and ominously on his notepad. Bob’s eyes whirled gleefully.

“So, who’s gonna do the dirty deed, then? Is it you, Mr. Sexy Mafia Boss? Is that why you bought him? Or Luccio, or that hot lady cop, or, _ooh_ , maybe it could be Mollyyy _yeeeeeeeeeep!_ ”

“Keep going and I'll freeze your whole damn skull over,” I growled, as ice crystals frosted their way across Bob's jaw.

“I thought it didn't need to move its jaw to talk,” said Murphy, staring at where I'd encased Bob's lower half in a block of ice.

“He doesn't,” Butters told her miserably. Mercifully, Bob shut up anyway.

Who _would_ be doing the ritual? My knee-jerk reaction, as painful as a knife in the gut, was to think of Susan. She would’ve been perfect – a woman I truly loved, the mother of my child, and absolutely ballsy enough to fight her way through Faerie to get me back – but she had also, unfortunately, fit the final ritual requirement: mortality. I still didn’t know what made her memory hurt more – the despair of knowing I’d never see her again, never touch her, or the gut-wrenching guilt of knowing I’d been the one to cause her death.

But without Susan…

Hells bells.

I was going to have to have _sex_. Probably with one of the people in this room. It had to be someone I loved, after all, somebody I trusted.

Who on earth was going to be _willing_ to-

“That’s taken care of,” said Marcone.

I stared at him. I think _everyone_ stared at him. He leaned back in his chair, face totally blank, and nodded coolly down the table. “Mr. Raith?”

Thomas and I met each other’s eyes, wearing identical shocked expressions. My mouth dropped open.

“Oh _shit_.”


	6. Chapter 6

 

 

**Part Two: Tuesday (Tyr’s day) afternoon**

**_Eros_** (ἔρως _érōs_ ) is passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. The Greek word _erota_ means _in love_. Although eros is initially felt for a person, with contemplation it becomes an appreciation of the beauty within that person, or even becomes appreciation of beauty itself. Eros helps the soul recall knowledge of beauty and contributes to an understanding of spiritual truth. Some translations list it as "love of the body."

_But how shall I thee ken, Tam Lin,_   
_Or how my true-love know,_   
_Amang sa mony unco knights,_   
_The like I never saw?_

Thomas burst out laughing.

“Oh my God-” Thomas snorted, between guffaws. “Oh. Oh, this is _priceless_. I wouldn’t have expected _your_ information to be that far out of date, Marcone, or didn’t you hear? I’m walking the party line now. Even if Harry _has_ saved my neck a couple times in the past, do you seriously think I’d be willing to go up against the whole of Mab’s Winter Court? For a _kine_?”

His scorn was nearly convincing even to me – the only person in the room who knew for a fact it was all fake. Marcone just raised an eyebrow and glared icily back.

“You may as well drop the act, Mr. Raith. I have no idea why you find such melodramatic misdirections necessary, but even if Mr. Dresden didn’t have a significantly less effective poker face than you do, I’d say your game was well and truly up after that display last October.”

And that, for some reason, made Thomas’s laughter die down, his eyes flicking frantically over at me and away even as he kept a broad devil-may-care grin plastered to the front of his face.

“Aw, c’mon, you can’t still be angry about that, I wasn’t thinking rationally-”

“No,” said Marcone, and wow, okay, so _that_ was what anger sounded like on him. “You weren’t.”

“What happened last October?” I asked.

“He broke into the middle of one of my more sensitive operations, blind-drunk and probably high, and tried to threaten me into admitting I’d killed you. When I refused to make myself party to his grief-struck delusions, he decided to revenge your death by eating me.”

I choked. _Eating_ -?

Marcone smiled, silkily. “It didn’t work.”

I turned a wordless, incredulous stare to Thomas.

“But- _Marcone_?”

“I was planning to hurt him a whole bunch first, too,” Thomas said, almost apologetically. “But then I got hungry after fighting through his security.”

“How did you get away?” I asked Marcone. I was honestly curious - Thomas could be pretty damn convincing when he wanted to feed off someone. I’d seen it for myself, and I was his _brother_. Even if Marcone was straight, it might not have made a difference.

“I emptied two full clips of ammunition into his stomach and fed him some whores. By the time he left, he was nearly sober, and back to pretending the two of you had been mere friendly acquaintances.” He met Thomas’s gaze, unblinking. “His level of emotional involvement should be sufficient for the ritual’s requirements.”

My mouth was opening and closing; I couldn’t make sound come out.

“Uh,” said Thomas. “I really, really don’t think this is a good idea.”

Marcone’s eyes narrowed to flat malevolence, and he glared at Thomas as if at something stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

“The _only_ reason I brought you here, Mr. Raith, is because I thought you could be useful. You regard Dresden with marginally more respect than the rest of your human chew toys, and he, God knows why, seems to trust you. You are also the only living individual with whom he shares a known history of sexual relations-”

“Look,” said Thomas, grin turning abruptly sober with just a hint of teeth, “I would really really _love_ to help you fuck Mab over. I signed your damn contract, didn’t I? I’ll go up against the Hunt all guns blazing with the rest of the cavalry, no questions asked, and I’ll even bring my whole family to join in the fun. But I _can’t help you with this_.”

Marcone’s eyes glittered as he stared down the table, and I was reminded, uneasily, of tigers.

“Can’t or won’t?”

“ _Can’t_ ,” I said firmly.

Marcone looked back and forth between the two of us and frowned.

“If the problem is the vampire’s allergy to romantic attachment, then surely there could be ways of working around-”

“No!” I yelped, trying not to fall out of my chair. “No, no no no no no, that is absolutely _not_ it, Thomas and I have never even had _sex_ -”

Marcone was frowning and opening his mouth to argue some more, but he was interrupted by Butters, who’d jumped to his feet and flung a finger out toward Billy.

“HA! I knew it! You owe me!”

Marcone’s eyes narrowed further.

“...Excuse me?”

Butters went abruptly silent and beet-red as he realized everyone in the room was staring at him – and the werewolves were glaring at him with more than a little displeasure.

“We, uh,” he squeaked. “Me and Billy-”

“Had a bet going?” said Thomas, repressed laughter shimmering in his eyes. Butters, however, seemed to interpret it as menace and started surreptitiously edging away from Thomas’s section of wall.

“Yeah,” said Billy, attempting and failing to sound defiant. “And that doesn't prove you won, anyway; just because he wasn't sleeping with the vampire doesn't mean that Harry's not gay.”

Murphy let out a snort that may or may not have successfully covered a giggle.

“I'm not _what_?!” I squeaked.

“Bisexual, whatever,” said Andi, rolling her eyes. “And I don't care what you say, Waldo, Billy's _definitely_ caught him noticing before. So you don't get your money back.”

Now _Michael_ was laughing. And Butters had gone crimson. I choked.

“ _Noticing_?”

“Yeah. When I change,” Billy shrugged, turning pinkish. “Not like I mind, or anything, I know you wouldn't, uh- do, um, anything, about-”

Stars and stones, now _I_ was turning red. “Billy, I don't like men!”

The werewolves looked me over consideringly.

“Huh,” said Marci after a second. “I guess Butters was right after all.”

Andi shook her head decisively. “No, Harry must just be repressed, or something.”

“But in that case,” argued Georgia, “there'd be no way to prove it...unless...”

All the werewolves and Butters turned as one to look at Thomas.

“No comment,” he told them, barely managing to hold back a grin.

Marci groaned. “Oh, come _on_! You can tell us! Use your creepy homicidal vampire sex magic powers for good-”

“Yes, Mr. Raith,” Marcone interrupted, icily. “Do tell. If you refuse to participate, what other options _does_ Mr. Dresden have available?”

As one, all of the wolves shrank back and shut up. Thomas didn’t answer.

“Well?” Marcone demanded. “You signed the contract. You _agreed_ to risk your life, if necessary, to help free Mr. Dresden. Am I going to have to enforce this, or am I going to hear a legitimate reason why you suddenly want to back out of this deal?”

Thomas looked furious, back bowed like an angry cat, silver shimmering just under the surface of his eyes. Over by the door, Childs took a tighter grip on his gun. I sat absolutely still, and tried to look unconcerned despite the nerves thrumming through me. If Marcone made this an order…

I wasn’t worried for my sake. I was used to it. Having to sleep with Andi, or Murphy or Charity, or even – God help me – Thomas, wouldn’t break me. In a lot of ways, it would be far better than some of what I’d gone through in Winter, though I didn’t know how I’d ever look my brother, or Michael, in the eyes again. But for the others, _any_ of the others, who’d never needed to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis, it would be bad. The kind of bad they shouldn’t have to go through.

And they’d all finally see me for the monster I was. What I was capable of – what I _had_ to be capable of – when acting under orders.

Sit. Stay. Rape. _Kill_.

The thought of bringing that sort of evil into a warm place like this made me nauseous.

Slowly, into the resulting silence, Murphy pushed back her chair and stood up.

“I’ll do it.”

I sucked in a breath. “ _Murphy_. Are you sure-”

“You stood me up last time, Harry,” she said, rallying a grin, and ignoring the startled faces of the Alphas. “Don’t you dare try to back out again.”

It looked wavery, her smile, but it was real, and I felt my heart aching for her. She was far too brave, and far, _far_ too good, to be wasted on me. To risk herself like this.

What do you say, in the face of generosity like that? What _can_ you say?

“I… _Murphy_. Karrin. Karrin, if you’re sure-”

Murphy didn’t look at all sure, and I didn’t blame her. I wasn’t exactly- hell, even before Winter, I hadn’t exactly been much of a catch. If I were her, I wouldn’t want me either. I certainly wouldn’t be willing to risk Mab’s wrath to sleep with me. But I knew Murphy, and I knew she would never leave someone in need – someone she saw as damaged, I thought bitterly, remembering the look in Michael’s eyes after Bob had said that thing about Mab and me – when she was able to help.

She nodded. She didn’t even look particularly reluctant. I was almost painfully grateful for that, even if it was only an act.

Marcone, meanwhile, had leaned back in his chair and was staring Murphy down with the look of a man examining an expensive gun. I could practically see her bristling under his stare.

“You’re certain that you care about him strongly enough to satisfy the ritual’s requirements?”

Her shoulders tightened, and she glared back. “Of course I do. We’ve been friends for over ten years.”

From behind her, across the room, I caught sight of Thomas frowning and opening his mouth, and I hurried to cut him off, eyes locked on Murphy.

“It’ll be enough.”

Marcone looked over at me again – one of those half-guilty almost-glances. I had never, in nearly twenty years, seen Marcone so leery of meeting my eyes. It was making me a little jumpy, wondering what was up with him, but it was good, too; it reminded me that everything between us was not the same. I obeyed his orders, now. As if they were my Queen’s. And in under seventy-two hours, I was going to kill him.

He was still the same scumbag, but we weren’t the same enemies anymore.

“Very well. If that’s all settled,” he said after a second, reaching down into the duffel bag, “I have several fertility potions for each of you to consume within the next hour. You will probably need to perform intercourse at least six to eight times for optimum effects; Dresden will need to take one additional cupful of the red thermos between each interval, while Ms. Murphy should take three cups of the blue. I will send Ms. Gard in to check on you with more potions in approximately four hours-”

“Hold on,” Murphy yelped. “We’re doing this _here_? Now?”

“Four _hours_?” I squeaked.

I would have to have _four hours’_ worth of sex? And with everyone, I realized with a sinking sense of horror, stuck at most a room or two away, knowing exactly what was going on. This was going to be even worse than when Mab had me up on the Table in front of the whole NeverNever at the start of my Knighthood – at least then, it hadn’t (mostly) been people I knew.

“It would have been six,” said Marcone, frowning. “But you all insisted on wasting time arguing. And the entire point of the protections Childs has placed around this room is that everything that occurs inside is hidden from the gaze of Faerie. I don’t have the supplies to raise these wards twice. If you step outside even once, and Mab discovers what we have planned, both this little adventure and all of our lives are likely to be over very, _very_ quickly. Now, Dresden. The yellow thermos first for you, followed by-”

“Wait, wait, wait. I thought you were planning on using Thomas. Why do you have fertility potions? _How_ do you have fertility potions?”

Marcone blinked irritably at me.

“Have none of you _ever_ heard of a contingency plan?”

Murphy gaped at him. He shoved a thermos into her hands.

“Drink. Hurry. Most pregnancies take well over seventy-two hours to germinate; this should speed the process along, but not by much. Too much magic risks invalidating the human power of the ritual. If you fail, there won’t be time available to try again.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter: warnings for explicit het and PTSD flashbacks, as well as REALLY REALLY INEFFECTIVE communication during sex (this is NOT how you do informed consent, guys!)

 

_And then I'll be your ain true-love,  
I'll turn a naked knight_

The potions tasted _terrible_.

At least I only had to drink three. Poor Murphy was given nine separate thermoses, each color-coded and meticulously labeled with strips of masking tape, including one viscous black one that made Butters actually gag from the smell. 

Murphy set the last thermos down, finished pushing the table over to one side, and looked around with a desultory air.

“Wow. Stale bagels. Way to bring the romance.”

Marcone had given us pillows and blankets, and had, I was pretty sure, only been stopped by the look on my face from pulling out some kind of air mattress and rearranging the furniture, but even with all the additions, though, nothing could really hide the fact that we were still stuck in a conference room that smelled strongly of herbs and stale potion, with three fully-armed guards and all of our friends standing right outside the door.

Hells bells, I didn’t even know how thick the walls here were in here. If not for Childs’s spell, the entire Carpenter family might be listening to me having sex in a few minutes. My _brother_ could be listening to me having sex.

_Marcone_ could be listening to me having sex.

I shivered.

“More like bagel shrapnel, by this point,” I said glumly, then grinned. “I swear, those Alphas eat like _wolves_ -”

“That joke stopped being funny after the first 600 times, Harry.” She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was smiling. Unlike _some_ people, Murphy appreciates my jokes.

I cleared my throat.

“So,” I said, and glanced sideways down at Marcone’s pillows, and became suddenly and horribly aware of every inch of my uncovered skin. I clenched and unclenched my hands, trying to find something to do with them- Oh stars and stones, I was actually going to do this. _We_ were actually going to do this. I felt oversized, standing next to her, clumsy and awkward and huge-

“Oh for God’s sake,” Murphy rolled her eyes again. “Stop looking at me like I’m going to bite you. And for the love of Christ, _please_ take that horrible coat off, it’s making me twitch. It looks like it's made out of baby changelings' skin, or something.”

I shuddered, and tried not to remember Puerto Rico.

“I- I don’t know what it is. Mab never told me.” I felt better, calmer, as I took the coat off and folded it carefully over a chair. It felt – not good, exactly; there wasn’t a damn thing that was good about this situation, not with Murphy risking her life to do this, but– familiar, having her tell me what to do. I did that with Mab and Maeve all the time.

But as for what came next...

I tried desperately to remember how everything had worked, that last time with Luccio, more than two years and a hundred lifetimes ago, but all I could come up with was a kind of warm blur of skin and a happy, glowy feeling that I sure as hell couldn’t make mesh with any of my more recent experiences of sex. I should be feeling all glowy right now, shouldn’t I? This was Murphy, Murphy who was safe and tough and funny and selfless enough to have sex with _me_ , who was brave enough to offer to save me when no one else would, who-

_Stones and stars._

-who was taking off her shirt.

Murphy had _really nice_ breasts. Round and pink and lickable and deliciously large against her tiny, well-built torso, spilling out and over the shockingly pink sports bra she was removing…

Uh. Nipples. Wow.

Her eyes met mine, sparkling brightly, and she grinned.

“Well? You planning to come over here, Mr. Dresden, or should I let you stand there and drool a little more?”

As an answer, I dropped to my knees, stuck my nose between her legs, and rubbed up against the front of her jeans.

Above me, she let out a startled little squeak.

Moving slightly awkwardly (Maeve’s outfits usually provided easier access) I managed to get her zipper down and her pants and underwear off without having to remove my hands from her breasts (gorgeous, gorgeous breasts – warm, buttery-soft and liquid under my palms, with real lumpy human skin, I didn't _want_ to let go of them). I tucked my knees in underneath me, tilted her back against the conference table, and set to work.

She didn’t taste too bad, but she was a little more sour than I would have preferred – that was all right, that helped me remember who I was dealing with. Helped ground me. Helped remind me she was human.

Her squeaks rapidly disintegrated into harsh pants and gasps above me, her clit growing as firm and pebbled as her nipples under my tongue and fingers. She seemed to like tongue-fucking a lot, and she liked it even more when I took one hand off her right breast to get my fingers inside, curling and then, working off an intuition that proved completely accurate, jabbing up into the soft, thick, wet meat of her opening in one long, hard thrust.

She _wailed_.

My world narrowed down to soft flawed skin and human smell and warmth that surrounded me, and the familiar, careful motions of fingers, tongue and lips and teeth. I kept my tongue flicking in and out of her labia, around my fingers, and moved the other hand down from her nipples to smooth over and clutch at her ass, grounding and lifting her against me. Drool and juices ran down my chin and into my collar as I concentrated, trying to keep the pressure hovering at just this side of pain. Harder, I had to lick harder, Maeve liked to really feel it when she finished-

“…H-Harry. _Harry_.”

I blinked, and the phantom sensation of snow on my lips fell away suddenly, leaving me disoriented and shaking. Despite my best efforts, it took me a second to answer.

“…Yeah?”

Karrin was staring down at me with wide eyes, face still pink and flushed from the second orgasm, but it gradually began to occur to me that something was wrong. She had lost that laughing happiness that had been shining out of her face earlier, when I’d tumbled her backward, and my gut clenched involuntarily- this was Murphy. _Karrin_. She deserved the best.

“What did I do wrong?”

_Pathetic_.

The question came out shaky, plaintive and higher than normal despite how rough my voice had become. I willed my stupid hands still – they wouldn’t stop shaking, convinced there should be cold somewhere near me, despite the fact that I hadn’t been physically affected by cold in over a year – and to cover, I ran my tongue quickly up the smooth seam of her cunt, flicking at her clit on the upstroke.

She squeaked, and this time, she actually braced an arm on my forehead and pushed herself backward, crawling across the table to get away.

I let go immediately. My face was probably beet red- stupid, to keep going after she’d stopped me, stupid – I was right, Maeve was right, I was good for nothing but a big, fat, human-shaped dildo, I’d ruined this for Karrin, after all she’d done for me, all she’d agreed to-

“I- It’s great, Harry. Really. You’re not doing anything wrong.”

She was nice enough to make the lie halfway convincing, but even to my ears, her voice sounded forced, too hearty. I kept my eyes glued determinedly on the floor as a warm hand crept onto my shoulder, so slow and gentle I had to try not to flinch away.

Her skin was so warm.

“Harry, do- do you really want to do this?”

I flinched.

Slowly, carefully, I started to pull my hands back away from her waist. Stupid, stupid, I should have known she wouldn’t want to go through with it-

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I- sorry, should have known you’d want to stop, you don’t have to do this if-”

“No, Harry, wait,” she reached forward hurriedly, putting a hand on my arm. “I wasn’t saying _I_ wanted to stop, I was trying to ask if _you_ did-”

“Of course I do!”

Looking up, I caught her looking down at me with that same funny look of pity and coldness, the same sad, half-wary, half-angry expression she’d worn when Bob had talked about Mab holding me down. As if (my stomach jumped) as if she remembered what I was. Who I was. The monster of Winter, used by the Queen to do unspeakable things-

"Of _course_ I want to be here, Murphy, I- I mean, as long as you're okay with it."

She took a long look at my face, closed her mouth, opened it again, and reached out to lay a tentative hand against my knee, rubbing soothingly up and down.

“Harry? Are you- just then. Are you sure you're feeling all right?”

“Of course,” I repeated, bewildered. I was busy having sex with a beautiful woman; why wouldn't I be happy? “I- I’m sorry you didn’t like it, but I don’t- look if the, um, if that wasn’t working, I can try something else-”

I bit my tongue almost immediately; stupid, stupid, of course if she wanted to stop we’d stop, it wasn’t my place to argue with her, to _bargain_ -

She blinked up at me once, and abruptly grinned. “Okay.”

And then her hand snaked all the way up from my knee to my crotch, and I really _did_ jump. All the blood in my body shot down from my head and face toward where ten tiny, nimble fingers were reaching their way down into my underwear.

“Karrin?” I gasped, trying and failing to keep myself upright by grasping at the table. We tumbled backward, her warm, naked body on top of me. “Karrin, what are you doing?”

“I just wanted to take my turn, okay, Harry?” Her voice was firm and warm, pronouncing each word with careful exactness as if talking to a child. Her eyes were still a little funny, but she smiled at me as she reached down to undo my fly, lifting out my cock and-

“Murphy!” I squeaked- or possibly gasped a little. Or it may have come out sounding like “Murphhhoarrgh” – look, it’s hard to be coherent when a wet rough tongue is tracing its way down the vein on your shaft and over your balls.

It had been a long time. A really, _really_ long time.

“I- you don’t have to-” even to me, my protest sounded pathetic, couched as it was in panting gasps and grunts – hey, I was a little distracted, okay? It was hard to concentrate on much of anything beyond the moist, hot, tight heaven of sensation that was Karrin’s mouth.

This was- when Maeve took me, when Mab took me, if they wanted me to be aroused, all they had to do was twist at the web of Winter threaded through my magic and my body, but now my body was surging to life all on its own for the first time in _decades_ , Never-Never time, and it all felt _so damn good_.

Warmth, wonderful, blessed _heat_ washed over and into me in waves like molasses, building in my gut and spine up from the hot tingle of Karrin’s hands and mouth around my cock, and from the aching, painful tightness in my chest as I fought to get back control. My mouth felt like it had disconnected from any kind of conscious command, my skin all over loose and hot and tingling, achingly uncomfortable, like I was rediscovering that it was mine.

“Stars, Karrin- Karrin, I’m going to-”

She didn’t take her mouth away.

“Karrin, the ritual- John said-”

She pulled off with a long, slick, noisy lick that made my vision actually white out, trembling, with the effort of holding myself back.

“Fuck the ritual,” she said, low and fierce, reaching out with one hand to grab the base of my cock. “And _fuck_ Marcone; he can damn well wait. I want to do this for you, Harry – just once.”

She was furious, gorgeous and perfect, and I felt something deep in my chest tremble and split, spinning loose and hopeless and broken, at the thought that she cared- that she cared about me. That all this time, while I’d been worrying about how to make it good for her, she’d been trying to make it good for me as well.

She was giving up her body for this – she was risking her _life_ , and she wanted to make it good for _me?_

She had barely touched her lips back to my cockhead before I was coming, spilling out and over her open mouth and face, and I went hot and then cold and then shaky all over with humiliation as I realized I’d gotten come in her eye.

Even with embarrassment and guilt literally turning my skin scarlet, I was still too loose and buzzing and high off endorphins to summon up more than a muttered “sorry,” as she wiped it all clean and spat. I collapsed back, exhausted, as she crawled up my body, pulling my shirt up and off casually as she went. Stars and stones, we hadn’t even gotten my pants off.

Another wave of embarrassment washed up over me. I had meant to do this _right_.

Karrin looked, for a minute, like she was going to say something more, but when she noticed me tensing up again she sighed, and crawled over to lay down next to me against the linoleum. She dropped an almost cursory kiss to my sternum, tiny and warm and feather-soft, and settled down with both arms around my shoulders, hair glowing like a halo in the yellow light.

“Shh. Harry. It’s fine. You’re fine. We’ll save it for round two, okay? Marcone _is_ right about one thing - you’ve still got to get me pregnant.” She made a thoughtful noise and pushed at one shoulder. “God, you’re bony. Hold me closer- yeah. Like that.”

“Whatever you want,” I said, proud that my voice didn’t wobble as she snuggled up into the crook of my arm.

Gradually, feeling safer and warmer than I could remember in ages, I drifted off to sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, look, plot! :D

_Gloomy, gloomy was the night,  
And eerie was the way_

I opened my eyes to find myself lying on a huge, king-sized oval bed strewn with a layer of rose petals thicker than the blankets that cushioned up around me and stuck in my hair and nose when I moved. Strings of gently glowing lights, interspersed with flowers, hung down from the ceiling of the velvet-draped room beyond the bedcurtains, illuminating my naked body and throwing a soft yellow gleam over the golden bedposts.

As my eyes took in the scene, it slowly melted, the curtains of the bed turning into iron mesh laced with flesh, the orbs twisting into the staring eyes of nineteen familiar, murdered Summer children, the red petals beneath me melting into a mess of flowers and blood, blood pouring off of my own hands-

And then, as I opened my mouth to scream, it all vanished, and Lasciel's face appeared above me on the rose-strewn bed, smiling sweetly.

Oh, _Hell_.

Literally.

“Well, well, well, Harry,” she purred, “hasn't _somebody_ been a naughty boy?”

“Not to be too obvious, or anything,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows and wincing at the cloud of squished-flower perfume that wafted up from my every move. _You're not in Summer. You're not in the NeverNever. You're dreaming. You're safe_. “But weren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“That which died in the Deeps was but my shadow,” said Lasciel, her voice turning darker and hotter, flickers of resentment washing over the lovely features. “A shadow which you succeeded in perverting and destroying, along with a large portion of my power. But my coin has long since been freed from that makeshift little hidey-hole of yours, and I am grown strong enough to walk free in your thoughts again – when, that is, the Queen of Air and Darkness is not blocking my presence from your mind.”

I swatted irritably at the petal that kept trying to stick to my nose.

“Mab’s been shutting you out? Huh. Maybe I should send the Icebitch a thank-you card.”

“It is highly unwise to refer to your mistress in such a manner, my Host. _Particularly_ within the confines of your mind.”

“Nah, it's cool.” I grinned, flopping back and sprawling out across the rose bed. Obnoxious smell aside, it was actually pretty comfy. “Marcone's got my back.”

Lasciel's eyes flared with irritation.

“That is, apparently, not the only thing of yours he's got.”

“Huh?” I scrambled back upright. “What do you mean?”

“Among other things, he seems to have absconded with most of your common sense.”

 _Ooooh_. Hellbitch was pissy. This ought to be good.

“John Marcone is going to murder you on the night of the Solstice. And you're helping him do it.”

I blinked at her. Okay. I could admit it. This, I hadn’t really expected.

“Look. I know you haven't really been around for a while, but if you could hear anything about what went on in that room, you'll know that Marcone's not trying to kill me. He's trying to save me. My friends agreed to _sell themselves_ to help him save me. And do I _really_ have to justify my decisions to you while I’m naked?”

“This is your dream, my Host,” said Lasciel calmly. “Simply imagine garments, and they will be provided.”

Yeah. Suuuuure. And my subconscious had offered up that freak-show of an introduction too, all on its unprompted lonesome.

I've met my subconscious. He really isn't that subtle.

In any case, I took advantage of Lasciel’s silence to summon up my old, pre-Faerie garments: faded, dirty jeans, cowboy boots, and a green T-shirt reading, inexplicably, “I Flunked Out of Damsel Academy.”

“Hey,” I said, after puzzling for a few seconds over the logo. “It occurs to me to ask: were you watching me and Karrin in the boardroom back there? Because if you were, then this whole relationship of mutual hatred we’ve got going could degenerate a whole _hell_ of a lot faster than it already has.”

Lasciel just looked back at me, her expression distant, and faintly sad.

“Marcone is going to double-cross you, my host,” she said, sounding almost sympathetic. “Badly. You are safe as Winter’s ward, even if useless to me, and in a thousand years or so that situation may change. But in this year, in this time, there are powerful forces at work that desire your destruction. Do not reject Winter’s mantle, my Host, I beg you. Stay alive. Stay safe.”

“Safe?” I restrained myself from choking out a laugh. “In _Winter_? I’d be safer at ground zero of a nuclear attack facility.”

“Mab keeps you safe from death, my Host. What is aught else, to that?”

Her question cut straight under all my carefully-composed calm, leaving me dangling, a raw open hole of emotion. What was everything else worth, indeed? Death, right now, sounded halfway appealing, compared to the bloody, painful madness that was my life. Death. Rest. Peace. Safety for my friends from all the trouble I kept dragging them into…

…And these were _not_ thoughts I should be having. Ever. Especially not when those same friends had just committed to risking their lives to rescue me.

Especially not with a fallen angel suddenly reappearing in the back of my head.

“You sound like Mab,” I complained. “ Blah blah blah don’t hurt yourself blah blah damaged Knights expensive blah blah blah punishment.' Alllllllll the frickkin' time. And speaking of Mab, why does everyone in the supernatural world except me suddenly seem to think they know what Marcone’s planning all of a sudden? Did I miss the interdimensional memo?”

“Not a memo, my Host. A prophecy. It has been in existence for long ere you were conceived, and it shall come to fruition a bare three days hence.”

A prophecy? About _Marcone_? I opened my mouth to ask, but before I could make a sound, Lasciel had leaned forward and put one slim finger up against my lips.

“You won’t believe it, my Host. Not from me. Better to ask another.”

I slapped her hand away, and scowled. “Okay, first, that is the lamest excuse in the history of cop-outs, and second, I don’t believe you _anyway_. You’re evil, and your advice makes no sense. You shouldn’t be warning me off Marcone. You should _want_ me freed from Winter, because then you’ll be able to tempt me again.”

“Exactly. Which is why you should heed my words with care.” She eyed me warily. “I will speak plainly. I am pleased with neither your current situation nor your recent actions. You have permanently destroyed a fraction of my power, and, more worryingly, lured a facet of my ethereal being into compliance and submission. You have sold yourself into a state of slavery where I can no longer access your thoughts and where your powers are daily wasted in waging a senseless, endless war between immortal forces that must remain eternally opposed. You are worse than useless to me at the moment, and likely to become more so with every year that you remain outside my reach.

“But there are worse fates in store. For both of us.”

She spoke with an honesty that, fake as it might be, sent a thrill of dread running down my spine anyway.

“Marcone isn’t setting me up,” I said, sounding uncertain even to my own ears. “What could he possibly gain from killing me, anyway?”

“I only know that the Baron Marcone cannot be benevolent toward you in anything he does. He is the one who is fated to bring about your second death.”

“My _second_ death? I – hang on, where the hell were you during my first one?”

“Keeping you alive,” said Lasciel. “Where else? I serve your interests, however ill you may have used myself and my shadow. And it is because I serve them still that I warn you, for a third and final time: do not go through with this rescue.”

I crossed my eyes at her, and stuck out my tongue.

“La la la laaaaaa, still not listening.”

“Don’t believe me? Fine. Go to the White Council and see what _they_ tell you. Ask your mentor about your destiny, hero,” said Lasciel, scorn dripping from her voice. “It doesn’t have a happy ending, and it certainly doesn’t involve any benevolent criminals with hearts of gold.”

She turned to walk away from me, full skirts swishing elegantly, accompanied by the soft chiming of bells. As the crowning glory of this total and disgustingly predictable cliché, a pink bubble began to form around her feet as she moved, obscuring her body from view.

I stared at it for a second. Are you a good witch, or are you a bad witch?

“Oh,” she added, pausing, just before the bubble shimmered into invisibility, “one more piece of advice: if you really want to know where I’m getting my information, ask the Baron Marcone what happened to Amanda Beckitt.”

 

 

Some four hours later, Karrin and I were both woken up for the third time by a discreet knock on the door.

“Come in,” Karrin called, after a few seconds of panicked scrambling for clothes. The door swung open to reveal not Marcone, as I’d feared, but Charity, carrying a blanket, another bag filled with food and (I cringed) wet-wipes, water bottles, towels, soap, and more of the horrible thermoses.

“Ugh,” said Karrin, sitting up from where she’d been retrieving a sock. “If I have to drink any more of that black slimy stuff, I swear to God, I’m going to vomit. Coffee first.”

“You can’t drink anything else before you take these two, I’m afraid,” said Charity, sliding the yellow and green-stickered thermoses along the table, “but the good news is, they’re the only two left.”

“We’re done? We don’t have to do this again?” I asked, from over behind the table. I was trying not to hide behind it; it was just awfully hard to look Charity in the eye, what with the pillows still lying all rumpled everywhere.

Her face smoothed into carefully gentle neutrality.

“Marcone says that Murphy should be free to leave the room soon.”

My heart sank at the thought, and I struggled to keep the apprehension off my face so I wouldn’t worry Karrin and Charity. I always knew the tiny circle of safety and warmth Karrin and I had made here couldn't last; it was just sooner than I’d expected, is all. Abruptly, desperately, I wished I could touch her again. Not for sex, just for warmth. It would be nice, having another hand to hold.

But it wouldn’t be safe. I had to protect Karrin – now, more than ever, now that I’d put her – for the next seventy-two hours – in more danger than she’d ever been before.

I didn’t have time for guilt. Marcone was coming, and Karrin had to drink her potion.

“Oh God,” she groaned, staring into the yellow thermos. “It _is_ the black slimy one. Harry, if I didn’t love you so much, I’d be cramming this thing up Marcone’s ass right now.”

 _Love you_ \- her words hit me like a fist in the gut, and I froze, heart rabbiting, half-in and half-out of my stupid faerie duster.

“Harry-” Charity caught my expression from across the room and came over, eyes going melty. She silently tugged the duster out of my hands, dropping a blanket over my shoulders instead. “Are you okay?”

Karrin looked over, and her face twisted, sympathy and something like regret.

“Aw, Harry. Come on, I lied, it’s not _that_ bad.” She dropped the thermos on the table and walked over to give me a hug, her tiny arms stretching out to meet around my waist. I felt myself choking up.

“ _Karrin_ -”

“Shhh. Shut up. Just- shut up, okay, Harry?” Her voice was fierce and tight with stress, muffled in Charity’s blanket. “You’re okay. I’m okay. Everything’s going to be okay.”

It was too much. I leaned over and put my arms up around her, silently, dropping my face down into her hair. I wanted to say it wasn’t me I was worried about – wanted to say she should watch out for herself, that she should stay safe, that _she_ was the one in danger and so hopelessly, hopelessly brave- but before I could she had stepped away and back to the thermos with a grimace, shaking more potion down her throat.

“Should I tell the others to wait a while, before coming in?” Charity’s eyes on me were steady and concerned. I shook my head, briefly, and pulled myself together.

“No. It’ll- I’ll be fine.” I’d done my part – I’d bought myself a chance at rescue, bought Karrin (don’tthinkaboutit don’tthinkaboutit don’tthinkaboutit) the chance to risk her life and Michael’s and Thomas’s and Charity’s and the Alpha’s lives trying to save me. I felt like the worst kind of scum for it, but I’d made my bargain. “Go ahead and send them in.”

Before the words were fully out of my mouth, the door was swinging open, to admit Gard, Marcone, Butters, and an assortment of Alphas. Hendricks and Child, I saw, were still in their previous poses outside, and I tried to ignore the tingling humiliation swelling up in the pit of my stomach. They couldn’t have been listening, not really. Childs’s runes locked out noise as well as magic, or had that been only one-way-

Marcone was scanning the room with a soldier’s gaze before he was all the way inside, cataloguing runes and table and blankets before his eyes finally snapped onto me. “All right, Dresden?”

“Fine,” I snapped, pulling the blanket closer around my shoulders, hating the way it slipped and slid against my fairy-silk shirt. I still hadn’t put my duster back on. I didn’t really want to. All of the Alphas and Butters were eyeing me with sidelong looks, and I resisted the urge to sink back down under the table.

Marcone’s money-green gaze swung off me and over to Karrin, who had taken a chair at the opposite end of the table from me and was gulping down potion.

“Ms. Murphy? Any problems?”

Karrin didn’t answer, but her whole body flinched at the sound of his voice. Deliberately, she turned around to put her back to him, and continued to drink.

“Karrin?” I said, quietly, all too aware of Marcone's green eyes glued to my neck. “Kar- Murphy? Murphy, are you all right?”

“Fine, Harry,” she said, in a frighteningly calm, brittle voice. I itched to go comfort her, touch her, but – I didn't know if I would be allowed. Then she paused, and visibly shoved her anger down, and gave me a genuine smile. “Seriously, I'm fine. _We’re_ fine. Everything is going to be okay.”

And that’s when the building caught fire.


	9. Chapter 9

_…And last they'll turn me in your arms  
Into the burning gleed_

It didn’t catch like an ordinary fire. It _exploded_ , fire billowing up to cover the walls of the corridor outside in the space of one blink to another. And even though it had obviously started magically, the flames were real – the plaster was beginning to char and crack with heat around the doorway, the air growing hot and thin, until I could feel great patches of Childs’s invisible spell-ring barrier beginning to wear away as the walls they were painted on charred and crumbled. I could feel the raw, rough, natural force of the flames singing out to one half of my magic even as my Winter power twisted and writhed in response to the growing heat-

Oh, hells bells, _Winter_.

 “Marcone!” I choked out, “Winter’s coming back-” I couldn't tell if he'd heard; my words were nearly drowned under the sudden explosion of sound back into our little circle: screaming and shouting from the corridor outside, and the great crackling wild roar of flame, and then-

A voice, a _horrifyingly_ familiar woman’s voice, thundered out from everywhere and nowhere at a thousand times its normal volume.

“This is a message for John Marcone. Every building you own is about to be burned to the ground. You have nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide. I’m coming to get Harry Dresden, and if he’s not alive and unhurt when I find him, I’m going to burn you next.”

The voice died away, and I shuddered – not because of the message, or the wild, possibly-dangerous anger and sorrow that had been choking the speaker’s voice, but because I recognized that voice.

“Oh, Molly,” I whispered. “What have you done?”

A shiver ran down my spine. Producing the illusion of burning down one or even a couple of building would be well within Molly’s capabilities, and projecting her voice and some kind of klaxon-sound across Chicago might have been manageable with a _lot_ of effort, but actually setting fire to a dozen different buildings required a whole different level of power.

“Hold the circle!” Marcone snapped over at me. His jaw was tight, face grim and hard like iron, but I could see something like fear leaking into his eyes. “Put these flames out, protect yourselves, but _stay here_ , we _must_ stay inside the wards at all costs-”

I reached out to do as Marcone had ordered, grasping frantically all the pidgin Latin I knew for safety, for cold, for water. My stomach lurched, and I felt, suddenly, uneasily, the familiar tingle of Winter, back in my bones…not just in my bones. Radiating, from the air around me, from the fire-

Molly wasn’t just using extra power to fuel this spell. She was using faerie power. _Winter_ power.

If Mab knew-

If Molly had _told_ her-

I redoubled my efforts, mentally cursing – I’d always been terrible at water magic – but I was trying to fight Winter with Winter, and the fire twisted from my grasp almost like a living thing, like gripping water with oily hands.

“Marcone,” I said, then shouted, as he stared around at the walls with wide eyes. “Marcone! It’s Winter magic. She’s using Winter power. I can’t freeze these flames-”

“Boss!” Hendricks echoed from the doorway, “I can hear you in there, the wards are down! You need to get out of there before the whole place goes up-”

Gard, who had pressed one hand up against the empty space inside the doorframe and looked momentarily surprised when it passed safely through, didn't bother yelling, just strode across the room to stand meaningfully at Marcone's shoulder.

Marcone hesitated for nearly a full second, his eyes locked on mine, before whirling into a blur of frenzied action, snatching at his duffel and tossing contracts and guns into it as he raised his voice to address the room at large.

“The Carpenter children ought to be evacuating along with the ordinary personnel; somebody needs to find them and make sure they escape the building safely. From this point on, we must assume that Mab knows everything about what we are doing and what we have planned. Take shelter inside cars, elevators, churches, anything with iron or steel; Raith and all females, split up and scatter as soon as you’re outside, it may help to confuse the trail. Get out of the city and, if possible, out of the state-”

There was a great booming crack from above us, and a chunk of ceiling tile fell, charring, down onto the table. The wolves were already moving, naked or half-naked bodies jumping into fur; across the room, Butters was stuffing Bob frantically back into his sack, stumbling toward the doorway.  I caught a glimpse of Murphy, white-faced, clutching for thermoses as she bundled potions and weapons up in both arms, and reached out a shaky hand to touch her shoulder.

“Karrin-”

“I’ll be fine!” she yelled, shoving me sideways and choking on smoke. “I’ll see you later, just go, go-”

“ _Leave her_ ,” snarled Marcone from behind me, so close that I nearly jumped. “leave the damn fire, follow me, protect me, and _leave your friends_. That’s an order!”

I opened my mouth to argue and he planted one hand between my shoulder blades and pushed, hard, tumbling us forward into an unsteady run out the door. Hendricks and Childs fell in line as we charged through the corridors, guns drawn. Hendricks and Gard looked as unruffled as if they were strolling through a sunny afternoon, but Child’s eyes kept jumping, rolling and twitching away from the flames.

We stumbled out onto the sidewalk more or less together, but before I could speak, Murphy was already running away, gun drawn, dragging Thomas behind her.

She turned back to look at me once, on the corner. Thomas didn’t even pause.

I think I choked; I know I stumbled, watching the two of them vanish. Mab was going to kill them.

Marcone made a cut-off, angry sound as I moved to go after them, and dragged me away sideways by brute force, hauling me around until his face was barely an inch away from mine. He looked _furious_.

“You are putting them in danger,” he hissed at me, green eyes livid and huge and entirely too close for comfort. “If there is the slightest chance that your Queen is already involved, anyone that has been in that room is in terrible jeopardy, more so the more you appear to care for them. You _can’t afford_ to be this stupid, and you know it, Dresden. _Get your damn emotions under control_.”

I glared at him. He was right, and I hated him for it, because they wouldn’t be in danger if he hadn’t started all this. If it weren’t for me being stupid enough, _selfish_ enough, to put my friends on the line-

Instead of snapping at him, I took a step back and lifted my staff, scanning over and around the street for threats. People were evacuating the building behind us, and in the distance, belatedly, I heard sirens sound.

“I need to go help Molly. If she made a deal with Winter to find me-”

“If she made a deal,” Marcone overrode me, “it is already too late. Our priority now is to get _away_.”

Hendricks’ pulled up to the curb, in a white Ford Mustang riding suspiciously low to the ground, tricked out with bulletproof glass and (I would bet) an extra layer of blessed steel around the passenger cabin. I’d been so focused on Karrin, I hadn’t even noticed Hendricks leave – or Childs, or Gard, who was waiting next to him on the sidewalk with one door held patiently open.

“Fine,” I gritted out, and headed for the car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A white MUSTANG. A WHITE mustang. ...Get the joke? ;)


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

  
**Part Three: Tuesday (Tyr's day) evening and night and Wednesday (Odin’s day) morning**  
 ** _Storge_** (στοργή _storgē_ ) is natural affection, like that felt by parents for offspring.

_And there she fand his steed standing,_   
_But away was himsel_

I didn’t even get a leg inside before I heard a tiny voice yelling “Za Lord! Za Lord! I have found the Za Lord, Harry Dresden! HEEEEEEEERE!” and a thousand tiny pixies hauled me up in a twinkling cloud and slammed me down against the car’s metal surface. Turning my head, I caught a glimpse of blue-painted skin, and my mouth dropped open.

“ _Toot-toot_?”

Great. My own minions were revolting.

“Never fear, Harry Dresden; we will save you from the evil Baron!” Toot-toot chirped cheerily, bobbing up and down, oblivious to my growing horror. “I have called for backup!”

“Marcone,” broke in a voice from the end of the street – a female voice, low and throbbing with emotion and – I shuddered – power.

 _Molly_.

Even I, who’d made something of a study of inspiring fear in victims over the past year-and-a-half, had to admit she made an impressively threatening spectacle. She was floating Magneto-style in the air at the mouth of a nearby alley, a nonexistent wind lazily stirring the tattered edges of her motley Kevlar-and-rag clothes. Strips of my old leather coat had been bound like sashes over and across her dress, trailing from her skirts. Her face was filthy and wild, caked with gore and ash and grime, her once-bright purple hair hung in dull brown strings, and her eyes–

Her eyes were _literally_ shooting orange sparks.

There was no sign of the cane she’d been using since Chichen Itza. Either she’d decided flying made a better impression than limping, or her leg had been re-injured to the point where she _couldn’t_ walk any more, but either way, I _did not like_ the implications of her casual use of that much power.

“I’m going to pluck both of your eyes out,” Molly said, sounding entirely too calm and _entirely_ too sincere, “if you’ve hurt so much as a hair on his head.”

And then she saw me, and wobbled in midair, her whole face collapsing into relief, looking as young and as terrified as she had the day I’d bailed her boyfriend out of jail.

“Harry!”

She hit the ground, stumbled, and rushed forward, tripping over her own feet. As she landed, I felt Winter's power fade – and then redouble, as the air behind her started swirling and solidifying into an arched gateway of ice.

“Molly,” I whispered. “Oh, Molly, what have you done?”

She didn't hear me, racing forward heedless of Hendrick's and Marcone's guns aimed at her.

“Harry, oh thank Jesus– I was so scared, Harry, Toot-toot said Mab had sold you to Marcone, he said he saw you but when I asked him he couldn’t find you anywhere, and I was afraid you were- I couldn’t let him hurt you, Harry, I had to get you out-”

Behind her, the icy gateway opened.

“Ah, Child. You have done well in finding him,” purred a melodious voice, as smooth as feathered snowflakes lapping against skin. “My Queen will be greatly pleased.”

My Godmother stepped forward through the icy gateway, the silk hem of her dress brushing against a manhole cover as she stepped forward into the Chicago evening. An inch of snow, like frosting, had settled around her feet.

All around me came soft clicking noises, as Gard, Hendricks, and Childs took off their safeties. Marcone, however, holstered his gun to put one hand, bruisingly tight, around my arm, dragging me sideways and behind him before Molly could reach me.

“Leanansidhe,” said Marcone, voice as hard as flint. “Touch him and you die.”

“…Harry?” Molly had pulled up short, quivering, like a hound suddenly unsure of what it’s chasing. “Harry, what’s going on?” Her gaze was still riveted on Marcone, expression fierce.

Oh Molly. She’d been trying to help – she’d been trying to _rescue_ me, ironically enough. It really wasn’t her fault that, thanks to her, that same rescue was now probably going to fail.

“It’s okay, grasshopper, he’s not trying to hurt me, he-”

“Shut _up_ , Dresden,” Marcone snapped, grabbing out at me again before my feet could reach the thin layer of snow spreading out from Lea’s doorway. “And for fuck’s sake, get back behind me and stay there.”

 _Orders_. I felt them all the way down to my magic, sizzling – Mab had not been kidding around, when she told Marcone that I would be his. Now that I was free of Gard's wards, his words hit me with nearly as much strength as if they were coming directly from my Queen herself.

Lea’s whole face lit up from the inside like a candle.

“Why, _Baron_. I would not have thought _you_ such a romantic. Tam Lin, again, after so many years… So this is why you permit Odin's Hunt to ride at last through the city you have guarded so well.” She was smiling with an open delight that sent a tingle of unease spreading like frost up the back of my neck. “I had wondered. My Queen is wiser even than I knew.”

“Tam Lin?” Molly said, into the silence. “Tam Lin? You – what does Harry mean, are you trying to rescue him or something-”

“Fret not, child,” Lea waved an airy hand in the air. “Your tutor may remain under Winter’s aegis yet. Now the Baron’s wards are down, my Queen need but glance within her Knight’s head to find the poor soul Dresden has lain with, and slaughter them before the Hunt begins to ride.”

Now it was _my_ turn to start shaking. I bit down, hard, on the furious gout of fire threatening to claw its way up out through my staff, and very determinedly did not send a fireball blasting at Lea. Slaughter them – that was Karrin she was talking about, Karrin and _my baby_ -

Marcone's hand slid up my arm quickly, pressing me back: a warning.

“How inconvenient for you, then, that there are so _very_ many humans within traveling distance.” He was standing at ease, perfectly casual, with his eyes half-lidded; it was only the iron-tight grip of the hand on my bicep that told me he was at all rattled by Lea’s proximity. “I could’ve forced Dresden to sleep with half Chicago in the last ten hours. Unless you want to start a wholesale slaughter right in the middle of one of the world’s largest cities and in spitting distance of a dozen Signatories, including two members of the Senior Council, five Denarians, and the Summer Lady, _and_ in violation of the Accords-”

“You would not have used more than one lover,” Lea interrupted decisively. “It would decrease the potency of the ritual, and I know Margaret LeFay’s blood as intimately as I know my own Hounds. The whole Court will be set riding in search of my godson’s quickened seed, and when his lover is found, our lady Queen will enjoy making a sacrifice of her upon the Table, splitting her presumptuous heart from her ribcage, choking her in the sodden remains of that abomination you would call your child-”

My face twitched, and I felt a wet trickle running down through one of my clenched fists as my nails broke the skin.

Lea’s eyes lasered in on my face.

“Ahhhhhh,” she trilled, voice breathy and delighted. “So it _is_ a female. Harry Dresden has got a mortal female pregnant. Oh, my sweet summer _child_.” She actually sounded genuinely pleased with me. Marcone's hand tightened reflexively on my arm, making me clench my jaw to keep from wincing. “Baron, you know not what you have this day wrought.”

“…lover?” Molly asked in a very small voice. “Harry, she’s not – you didn’t-”

“Grasshopper, it’s okay,” I tried to say, but ended up choking as Marcone’s command stuffed the words down my throat again.

Lea dimpled at Marcone.

“I cannot decide who I am more greatly pleased with, you or the little one.” She spared Molly an approving, proprietary look; Molly had pushed herself up from the wall, face white, shaking. “It is amusing. I did not even have to go to her, when I discovered my godson lost from Faerie’s eye – she came to me, crying and pleading for the chance to trade her firstborn child in exchange for the power needed to wrest Dresden from your grasp.”

I batted Marcone’s hand away, stumbling a step toward Molly. “You promised Lea your _firstborn child?!_ ”

More silent, wordless breaths, puffing mouthfuls of steam up into the chilly air. Molly’s eyes had gone abruptly wide, staring from my lips to Marcone and back again, but Lea looked straight at me with something like amusement in her eyes.

“I can keep your child safe,” Lea smiled, eyes hungry. “Grant me the unborn babe conceived this night, godson, and I will keep thy secret from the Queen my mistress, I will conceal thy lover so completely she will not be known even to thee, I will-”

I opened my mouth to (silently) tell her to go fuck herself, but before I could get so much as a not-word out, Marcone interrupted in a voice so dangerous it set hairs standing on end from the back of my neck down to my toes.

“I would trade you myself and my city before I let a child of Harry’s fall into your hands.”

“So be it.” Lea smiled indulgently at Molly, who had pressed herself up against the nearby wall of the alley as if trying to crawl into it, eyes huge. What worried me most about Molly’s expression was that it was focused not on the scene before her but on Marcone’s hand, once again clenched tight on my shoulder. “I think I will let you watch this next part, child. It will be instructional for you.

“ _This_ -” she lifted a finger, and a small silver bell appeared in her left hand, winking bright and innocuous “-is what happens to mortals who attempt to meddle with the property of the Winter Queen.”

Then she rang the bell, and, surging up from the fresh-laid snow as if they had lain buried beneath it, the Winter hounds ascended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I know Margaret LeFay’s blood as intimately as I know my own Hounds"  
> ....Yes, for those of you who were wondering, that line was meant to sound *exactly* that creepy. SO many unfortunate implications...
> 
> Also, I've been waiting possibly ever since GoT first aired to hear Lea call someone "my sweet summer child". :D


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the single slashiest section of banter I have ever written. Consider yourselves duly warned. Also, I am prepared to pay good money in prompts or baking to anyone who figures out what Molly's doing here.
> 
> In other news, Merlin fans, you finally get your Slashdragon!Vadderrung :D
> 
> Thanks, as always, to my amazing beta Jillyapple1.

_Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,  
And why breaks thou the wand?_

Hendricks and Gard reacted almost immediately, firing round after round into the storm of dogs from behind the lee of the vehicle. Several of the beasts bowled over, smoking. I drew in a quick breath – I could feel the bite of the bullets as they landed as dim impacts in the network of Winter power threaded through my magical senses: iron bullets. Above the retort of the guns, the cold high tones of my Godmother began to call out the Name of my Queen, only to be cut off by a yell from Molly.

Down at the end of the alley, Molly had pushed herself up, back and wobbly knee braced against the rough brick, with one hand extended toward Lea, ice crystals spreading out from her fingers to dance and swirl through the air around my Godmother’s throat-

Marcone swore, throwing himself in front of me, and teeth – huge, drool-covered, four-inch  teeth – snapped down inches from my face. Marcone had barely managed to catch the closest hound's fangs against his shoulder before it reached my neck; I quickly whirled my staff around and down on its muzzle, knocking it away. In the next second, another crack came from over by the Mustang, and the closest two dogs bowled over sideways.

“We have to go.” Marcone yelled directly into my ear over the noise of the snarls and guns, staggering back upright against me. “Harry. We have to go. Now.”

“But- Molly-” Surprise made me forget my voicelessness, but it must have been long enough for the force of his command to fade. I craned around, trying to see, and caught a glimpse of Lea looming up huge and awful over the tumbling sea of dogs, wreathed with a hurricane of violent snow and ice, lifting one hand out toward my apprentice-

“MOLLY!”

I lunged toward them, but the dogs had surrounded us on both sides, cutting me off.

“Harry, open a Way, _now_!”

“Molly!” I called back, even as my fingers moved of their own accord to tug absently at the air behind me. I felt the sky split under my fingers as warm air – warm, moist air heavy with the scent of wet grass and cabbage – tumbled out through a jagged rip in the sky. “Molly, get over here- run-”

Marcone shoved me forward and into the NeverNever before she could answer. Over his shoulder, I caught a glimpse of Hendricks, Childs, and Gard slamming themselves into the car. As it pulled away, Gard flung a one-handed gesture back toward us, the portal snapped shut, and Marcone and I were left alone.

“Hey,” I protested, as I turned automatically to follow Marcone, through the- I groped for my mother’s jewel in the darkness- through the bubonic-slug-infested swamp? _Urgh_. My job took me to the nicest locations. I tossed a bit of power into my staff, getting us a yellow glow bright enough to see the mist and muck surrounding us. “You just abandoned the others back there!” He ignored me, busily checking his guns. “You even left Hendricks.”

“I had no idea you’d be so distraught by the loss of his company,” said Marcone, in his very driest voice, as he attempted (fruitlessly) to salvage his thigh-holstered glock from the swamp muck. “By all means, let us go back to retrieve him. I am sure the angry fairies will be more than happy to help.”

“No, I mean- Hendricks _never_ leaves you! He’s like a really big ugly shadow.”

An equally ugly look crossed Marcone’s face, one that seemed to have nothing to do with the undeniably smelly knee-high muck.

“Mr. Hendricks is currently where he is most useful, and, I am sure, happiest: disabling the pursuit, and keeping me out of danger.”

“Out of dan- Marcone, we’re in Faerie territory!”

“Does this smell like Winter to you?”

Actually, it smelled kinda like puke, but I wasn’t gonna tell him that.

“Mr. Hendricks’ company, at this juncture, _or_ that of your delightfully insane apprentice, would only slow us down. We need to get back to my offices – or what little remains of them – and regroup.”

“I should warn my friends,” I agreed, thinking aloud. “Karrin and Thomas and Michael and everyone must be getting pretty worried-”

“Harry, when I said ‘regroup’, I meant with my men, not your erstwhile allies.  Any contact with you at this juncture would only serve to increase the danger they’re in.”

“But,” I protested, “ _Karrin_ ’s out there. I need to-”

Marcone raised a single eyebrow.

“To do what? Protest ineffectually as you’re dragged kicking and screaming back to your Queen?”

I glared at him. He raised a single impassive eyebrow.

“You’re a dick.”

Marcone cocked an eyebrow at me, eyes glittering in that way that meant he was trying not to smile. “Get used to it, Mr. Dresden. We are not going back for your friends. My priority at the moment is your safety, not theirs.”

I glared at Marcone’s stupid dog-bitten shoulder, which he seemed to be moving a little more stiffly as he waded away through the muck. He was awfully concerned with my safety, for a guy who was planning to kill me in only three (or two and a half? I needed to check a clock) days’ time.

A little voice in my head whispered that I was stupid to believe anything Lasciel told me.

But Lasciel had told me I was living a faerie tale, and the awful thing was, she was kind of right. My life, for over two horrifying years or longer, _had_ been a faerie story. A nightmarish Grimm parody, written and directed by literal faeries, where I parroted the lines of the monster in the dark.

Faerie tales meant old power, and good and evil, and destiny, and primal magic, desire and need and guts. They meant straightforward choices: rescue the damsel, kill the evil Queen. Stay on the path, or stray from it, and face monsters. Faerie tales were simple. Black and white. Good and evil.

But Marcone’s motives were anything but simple. _Lasciel_ was anything but simple, for all that she claimed to be on my side. She could be trying to tempt me into doing something stupid – into a situation where I’d have to rely on her power, let her further into my brain and soul, and allow her the chance to corrupt me. She’d done similar things before. Or she could be telling the truth. Or both, or…

…Or, y’know, I could always just ask Marcone.

I’ve never particularly liked faerie tales anyway.

 “So,” I said to Marcone, trying to keep my voice casual. “Why me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you want me free?”

“I believe I already explained to both you and your entire cadre of allies what I expect to get in exchange for this endeavor,” he said.

“Well, yeah, but in terms of deals...for you, that's kind of pathetic. You said it yourself, with the contracts: Karrin and everyone are probably just gonna keep doing what they're doing, more or less. You could have gotten way, way more out of us if you’d wanted to. You could probably have forced Butters to trade for Bob, or made Murphy give you the swords, or-”

“ _Really_ , Dresden. What would I want with the swords of the cross? I would hardly be able to use them. Especially since there are others, now working under my control, who can use them so much more effectively?”

And that, _that_ right there, was a faerie answer: scrupulously true and honest and utterly, utterly useless. Marcone was the only man I’d ever met who lied with the truth as effortlessly as Fae could, and I _hated_ him for it in that moment almost worse than I hated Mab.

I snarled, and staggered myself around in the muck until I could grab him by the front of his stupid diversionary jacket.

“ _John_. I've been going along with all this because it's undeniably to my benefit even if the whole thing stinks to high heaven, and also because I have no choice, but if you're trying to lead me or my friends into a trap, I am going to find a way to _end you_. So how about you tell me one more time: why are you doing this?”

He tugged himself irritably out of my grip and squelched away sideways, refusing to meet my gaze.

“Call it a gesture of good faith.”

I opened my mouth, ready to yell, before I realized he was being _honest_.

“What?”

“I want to gain your loyalty.”

…Nope, sorry, still didn’t compute.

Marcone stopped squelching forward and turned to look at me. “Harry. Surely you must realize by now how immeasurably valuable – how powerful – you really are. You are a member of the White Council Wardens, and one of the ten most powerful wizards alive. You are the guardian of the sword Amoraccius, once known as Excalibur. You are the only child of Margaret LeFay and the grandson of the Council Blackstaff-”

“How the _hell_ do you know about that?”

“-and you have some kind of mysterious hold over a magical island in the middle of Lake Michigan. The Vadderung, the White Council, and the Denarians each have prophecies about you, some of which have been in existence long before you were born. The Formor fear you. Nicodemus wants you. Mab wanted you, and spent six months involved in a frustratingly ambiguous ritual dragging you back from the dead. I can see as well as any other man which way the way the wind is blowing, and in my experience, if all the major players on the board are scrabbling over one piece, that probably means it would behoove me to get to it first.”

“Aww, _Johnny_. And if all the other Signatories jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?”

“Probably, if you were the one blasting us over.”

“Heh heh heh. Heeeeey, you made a joke.”

“Yes. It has been known to happen.”

“You trying to make me like you or something?”

Marcone closed his eyes, looking pained.

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

I blinked, nonplussed.

“ _Why_?”

“Because _Donar Vadderung_ thinks I should.” Marcone practically spat out the name, and I startled in genuine surprise. Last time I'd seen the two of them, they seemed to be on relatively good terms – hell, with all the Einherjaren around, they were practically living in each other’s pockets. Vadderung had been one of Marcone’s Signatories to the Accords, for Stars’ sake. Whence the bad feeling?

“Apparently,” he drawled, deadpan, “you are my destiny.”

I blinked.

“Excuse me?”

“I have been advised to 'make friends' with you,” Marcone continued bitterly, clearly quoting somebody from memory…quoting _Vadderung?_ “In order to succeed, I need to secure your trust and loyalty. Together, we can rewrite the course of fate. I must win your heart in order to save mine. Our destinies are entwined. We make a good team. You hold the key to my heart’s desire. All of which would be much less annoying,” he added, voice turning suddenly serious, “if _every single_ other source I went to hadn't told me the exact same thing.”

I was, personally, still stuck on the ‘entwining’ and ‘desire’ parts of the conversation, which sounded awfully…well, _gay_ , for an ancient prophecy made by an ex-god-turned-CEO.

Then again, when I’d last spoken to Vadderrung, he’d used donuts as a metaphor for free will, so maybe the guy was just a little bit strange.

“Vadderung told you make _friends_ with me? Really? …Wait, what do you mean ‘other sources’?”

Marcone glared down at the slowly bubbling swamp-mud, looking grim and unhappy.

“I consulted experts in prophecy and fate across Britain, New Mexico, Palestine, Bhutan, Siberia, Egypt, and Italy. All gave me the same information: I must get you on my side and earn your trust, or fail in all my endeavors.”

“But that means- Hang on, was _that_ why you went to Italy last year? Asking about me?”

He nodded.

“But... that was while I was...”

“Dead. Yes.”

“Oh. Uh,” I winced. “Sorry for messing up your destiny?”

“It's no matter.” He waved a leisurely hand in the air. “Your death would not, in any case, have represented a wholly insurmountable obstacle.”

“ _Wholly insurmountable_ – Marcone, were you contemplating _necrophilia?!_ ”

It was his turn to blink.

“Uh, I meant necromancy.”

He let it slide. “If I had to.”

“Empty Night.” I settled back on my heels and blinked a lot.

“That would have been substantially harder.” Was he making fun of me?

“Um. Yeah. I'll bet.” I swallowed. “Wow, whatever it is you want me for, you must want me bad. I mean. Uh.”

 _Why_ was my brain turning everything into innuendo today? I blamed Bob. And lots of stupid ritual magic sex. And Vadderung’s ‘entwining’. But mostly Bob.

“Oh, Mr. Dresden,” said Marcone, green eyes glittering. “ _Trust_ me. You have absolutely no idea.”


	12. Chapter 12

_"And ever alas, sweet Janet," he says,  
"I think thou gaest wi child."_

Conversation, after that, was kind of stilted. Mostly, the both of us put our heads down and slogged. My mom’s amulet didn’t give a whole lot of information about the swamplands other than “boring, avoid,” so I was grateful that Marcone at least seemed to know where we were supposed to be going.

We came out of the NeverNever into… well, it was kind of like someone had kicked over an extremely well-organized anthill. Jackbooted thugs, Einherjaren, and tweedy office-looking types swarmed all over the charred husk of what used to be Executive Priority, hauling boxes to and from assorted trucks and SUVs lining the street.

I looked around at the lack of firemen, the lack of smoke, and the bright midmorning light, and used my keen detective skills to determine that we’d been in the NeverNever for a _lot_ longer than we should have.

Mom’s amulet hadn’t said anything about any time changes along the Way, but then it also hadn’t said anything about the distinctly uneventful stretch of grassy-walled corridor we’d taken a left turn through four hundred yards back. I turned immediately to ask Marcone the time, and found him already fumbling with a cell phone that was probably not going to work if the sheer volume of swamp muck dripping off of it was anything to judge by.

He shot a look at the nearest clipboard-wearing office worker, hovering surreptitiously a respectful ten feet or so away. I was privately impressed by the level of discipline Marcone instilled in his workers; if I’d been feeling half as frantic as the people around us looked and _my_ boss had suddenly appeared out of nowhere covered in swamp muck, there was no way I’d have restrained myself to staring.

“Get me the date and time, a line to Hendricks, a situation report, and a towel, please.”

Several frighteningly well-organized minutes later, we’d been informed that it was 3 o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, meaning that Marcone and I had both been missing for a good eight or ten hours, and I only had a night and a day left in his possession. We’d been provided with bottles of water, sandwiches, towels, and (in Marcone’s case) several six-inch stacks of files, and thrust into a mostly-intact ground-floor massage parlor, displacing a group of tattooed men who were busy repackaging half-burned cartons of what looked like heroin. I tried to make a note of the packaging labels to tell Murphy about later, but Marcone corralled me in with a hand to the back of the neck, muttering something about Helen and incompetence and broad daylight, and shoved me sideways into a nearby bathroom before I could get a good look.

I would’ve protested, probably, only there was a _shower_ right there in front of me and suddenly else seemed quite as important anymore.

“Apparently the plumbing’s still functional,” Marcone informed me, already turning away to bury his nose in the topmost stack of paper. “I have to read these. If you use up all the hot water, I will devise new and unprecedented cruelties the likes of which even your Queen has never contemplated.”

 _Hot water_. I made a noise that probably qualified as pornographic, and slammed the door in his face.

I had fully intended to stay in the shower until all the hot water in the building was long gone, but after about forty minutes I heard Hendricks’ voice drifting through the door, and threw my muck-covered towel around me as fast as I could in my hurry to get out. Hendricks might have news about my friends, and I didn’t trust Marcone to let me know what was going on.

Unfortunately, Hendricks seemed to have finished his report by the time I got out; he was standing over by the far table with Marcone, who was still covered in swamp muck.

I edged a little closer, and bit my tongue against at least seven different comments involving "scum" and "filth". Some jokes are just too easy, and I have a reputation to maintain.

Hendricks and Marcone were arguing in low voices, and it was difficult to hear over all the crashing and thumping going on outside. 

“I’m sorry, have I ever given any indication of being unaware of the risks involved? If you have any better alternative-”

Hendricks had also, I noted with some dismay, brought with him my Faerie duster, slightly singed, and Marcone’s black duffel bag. And hot coffee, and _food_...

I looked up. Marcone had stopped talking.

“Harry,” he said, sounding slightly strangled, “would you please put some clothes on.”

Hendricks gave Marcone a meaningful look. Marcone ignored it.

“Sure,” I made an obedient grab at the pile of – _yes_ , thank you _Stars_ – freshly laundered clothes, and my towel slipped a little. “Hey, have you heard anything from any of the others? Because Karrin-”

“ _In the other room_.”

I scowled mulishly and retreated, but left the door open so I could keep shouting.

“Are the others okay? Are they safe? Did Molly get away? What’s Winter up to-”

“We don’t know,” said Marcone, sounding grim. “There’s been no word from your Queen or any of her agents for the past ten hours. Across all my networks, across even Gard’s senses, in all of Chicago – there’s nothing. Not so much as a hint of Winter magic on the air.”

I jammed my arms through my sleeves, decided this qualified as “dressed” enough, and charged back in, juggling socks and boots and buttons, to try to snatch up some of the sandwiches.

“That’s good, right?”

“Not exactly.” Marcone had collapsed down against the charred wall beside the scattered pile of papers, head hanging into his hands. I startled. He looked….well, _defeated_ , for lack of a better word.

The swamp muck didn't seem so funny anymore.

“She should have found Ms. Murphy by now. She should have found and eviscerated all of your friends, and returned to me with some suitable threat of vengeance. She should have responded, at least, somehow – you’re too valuable for an attempt like this to go unanswered. But she hasn’t.”

“That’s good, right?” I repeated, hope beginning to buoy me up, chest lightening. No sign of Winter – and Karrin was still in Chicago, no matter what Marcone told her to do; she must be. Karrin was safe, they were all safe…I took a satisfied bite of pastrami. “They escaped.”

Marcone gave me a dour look. “Harry, there is no logical way your friends could have escaped. From the instant that barrier broke, every mortal inside it has been living on borrowed time. She knows who we are, thanks to your deranged apprentice, and she knows how to kill us. Whether or not you can detect when your Queen is reading your mind-”

“She hasn’t been. I can tell.”

“Or she lets you _think_ you can tell.” Well, fuck. Wasn’t _that_ a frightening thought. “In either case, she’s had ample opportunity to slaughter us all. The fact that she hasn’t is… unsettling. I don’t know how much she knows. I don’t know what she’s planning.”

Unsettling. Yeah. That was a good word for it. _Unsettling_ , to have a supposedly well-known opponent suddenly change the whole game. Unsettling, to be put so completely in someone else’s power, and have no earthly idea what they wanted to do with you.

“But this means Her Iciness hasn’t found Karrin yet. The others are all okay. We still have time to go help-”

“Harry,” said Marcone helplessly, “Karrin Murphy is in all probability already dead.”

Before Chichen Itza, before Winter, I hadn’t seen my friends as a weakness. I'd spent a lot of effort trying to keep them out of the line of fire, but I'd never really considered how easy it could be to get to me using their vulnerability - how fragile the ties holding me within my safe, warm support network of mortals really were. I’d never even thought about how terribly little it would take to break them.

I was thinking about it now. Now, when – thanks to Marcone’s plan, thanks to _Mab_ – my friends, the last, best, and strongest tie to my old life, were about to be slaughtered by Winter hounds before the day was out. Now, when trying to help would only put them in worse danger.

I would have done it anyway. I would have gone after them, and gone after Karrin, and hang the consequences, if it weren’t for Marcone’s damn orders.

_Follow me. Protect me. Leave your friends._

The words left a sour taste in the back of my throat.

“I could find out,” I offered, despite myself, knowing even as I said it that it wasn’t going to work. “I could find them for you, find her for you, I could track them with magic, we-”

“If your Queen has already reached them, there would be no point. And if by some miracle she hasn’t found them already, there’s no point in making things easier for her.”

I opened my mouth to protest, and Marcone’s cell phone rang.

“Yes?”

A few seconds of silence, then: “When- when was this?”

Marcone had misspoken; a stutter, a glitch, in the ordinarily perfect outward machine of his emotions.

Something was badly wrong.

“What is it?”

Marcone ignored me completely, eyes glued to the smoke stain spreading over half the ceiling. Slowly, he snapped the phone shut.

“…Boss?” Hendricks was watching him with a worried expression. “What’s wrong?”

"Call Childs," he told Hendricks, dropping the phone and straightening up abruptly. "Tell him the arrangements are to continue as discussed. Call Helen, and get every last _fucking_ man we’ve got looking for whatever might be left of Karrin Murphy. Call Vadderrung and tell him I will need as many reinforcements from among the Einherjaren as he can safely afford; have two contingents sent to follow us as soon as we get a bearing -"

"But, boss-" Hendricks interrupted, a worried crease furrowing his massive brow, "Gard said-"

"I know what Gard said," Marcone snapped. Slowly, he drew in a deep breath, and let it out. "We're going through with the plan."

The crease between Hendricks' eyes deepened. "But-"

"We are going through with the plan,” Marcone repeated, turning away to start grabbing at weapons, stuffing knives and guns into every available holster. His voice was calm; pleasant, even. There was nothing in his tone or face that should have set all my danger senses flaring. “ _I_ am going through with the plan. I am going to finish this, come hell, Hunt, or high water, and then I’m going to remind Mab and Nicodemus and every fucking so-called Warden out there why vanilla mortals should make them _goddamn afraid_.”

“Marcone?” I took a cautious step forward, feeling the ashy floorboard creak under my feet. “John? What’s happening?”

He tossed the last knife in the air, runes winking along its silver blade, before stuffing it up his left sleeve, and turned to look at me – not _at_ me, not in the eyes, but at the space beside my head.

“Your daughter has been reported missing, and the men assigned to watch her found in a dumpster on Main Street.”

It was my turn to stutter, brain tripping up over his words: I couldn’t understand them. They made no sense.

“Wh-what?”

“There has been an assault on the Carpenter house,” he said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, still with that strange affable smile painted over his face. “Margaret Mendoza is missing. I am going to peel the skin off the face of whoever’s responsible.”

Maggie was missing.

Maggie was missing.

Maggie was-

_“What?”_


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHANGED! In significant ways to reflect future edits! In this chapter: warnings for slavery and PTSD. Actually, warnings for Marcone in general.

_"Haud your tongue, ye auld fac'd knight,_   
_Some ill death may ye die!_   
_Father my bairn on whom I will,_   
_I'll father none on thee."_

_“What?”_

Marcone took an apologetic step back, bowing his head and apparently misinterpreting completely the cold fury flooding my veins.

“You are, of course, entitled to the first shot at the responsible parties, but I would be… greatly honored if you left at least one or two for me. I can guarantee they will die ugly and slow-”

Maggie was gone. She was _gone_. He’d put men near the Carpenter house, he’d drawn attention to her, and now, somebody had taken her, again, and it was-

“Marcone,” I said, slowly, carefully, ignoring the _kill, kill, kill_ that was pounding in my veins with every step I took toward him, the furious instincts shouting that Marcone _knew_ about Maggie, that he had to _die._ “Why were your men watching my daughter?”

“Protection,” he replied curtly, eyes fixed on the knife in his hands. “Your blood should be sufficient for a tracking spell; we will need to leave immediately if we want to catch-”

“How _dare_ you.” My voice had gone low, rough and harsh as Winter wind. “How _dare_ you send your goons-”

“I’m not sure why you’re objecting to this now,” Marcone replied calmly, testing the edge of the blade against one finger. “I’ve had security watching the Carpenter house for over six months. Security which has, clearly, proved insufficient; that will have to be remedied in future-”

“WHAT GODDAMN RIGHT DO YOU HAVE-”

“No right at all, Mr. Dresden, but a very great need.” He exchanged glances with Hendricks, who had dropped the duffel bag and put a meaningful hand on his gun. “This is no time for you to indulge in hysterics. Margaret Mendoza is missing, and-”

“If your men hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t be missing in the first place!”

“Yes,” said Marcone, a hint of irritation leaking through his voice at last. _Good_. I wanted him to look at me, wanted his eyes off that damn knife and back on mine. I wanted him as angry as I was. “How terrible that _your daughter_ happened to have some extra protection. If my men hadn’t been there, it could have been another four or five hours before you even knew-”

“You had no right,” I snarled. The door behind me was shuddering back and forth, as if in a stiff breeze; there was ice frosting its way across the table behind Marcone. “You had no right to be anywhere near her, you had no right to know she even _existed_. If you hadn’t drawn attention to her, she wouldn’t be in danger; she’d be safe, if only you hadn’t-”

“If you don’t attempt to calm yourself, I’ll do it for you.”

"How _dare_ you-"

“Shut up and get down on your knees.”

My body moved without my conscious instruction.

The surge of rage that rushed through me nearly left me speechless.

I was going to _kill_ him. I was going to turn every drop of blood in his veins to ice, watch him twitch as his heart exploded-

A faint click sounded as Hendricks took the safety off his gun. Marcone just stared coolly back down at me, ignoring the icy wind whipping around him, his eyes grim and impersonal and deadly serious. He hadn’t moved so much as an inch.

Marcone had never looked at me like that before – like one of his lackeys, useful and forgettable and too weak to be a threat. For all our years of enmity, there had always been a certain amount of… fairness, of honor, in the balance between us. We’d never gone after the obvious soft spots – Amanda Beckitt, lying helpless in a coma in Jersey; my home and my job and my friends, all so obviously vulnerable to a man with Marcone’s resources. He’d never been cruel. For all that he was nominally my master, in the whole last day and a half, he’d never treated me like one of the Fae.

Until now.

He still wasn’t looking me in the eye.

“If you cannot keep yourself under control, I will leave you behind,” he said in a low voice. “So help me, I will give Gard your blood. I will get her to track the girl, and I will leave you behind. I cannot afford this from you right now. _Maggie_ cannot afford this.”

I bit down hard against a rush of rage that sent the temperature plummeting down at least another ten degrees.

It was really, really stupid to feel betrayed by someone I’d never liked or trusted in the first place. It was even stupider when he wasn’t acting any worse – was, in fact, acting much better – than all the other people who’d tried to control me over the years.

But this was Maggie – this was _my daughter_ , kidnapped in Chicago, all because that fucking scumbag had the gall to think he could interfere with _my child’s safety_ -

The windowpane in the far corner cracked and bowed.

“Harry. I _will_ give the order.”

This was _my_ _daughter_. And if Marcone gave the word – if he tossed off so much as a single sentence – I wouldn’t be able to help her.

I shuddered, biting back the fury that threatened to well up and choke me.

I felt the Winter mantle laced around and over my magic like a web of icy chains, and I finally admitted it to myself: I wanted to be free.

I didn’t care if Lasciel was telling the truth. I didn’t care if Marcone killed me the second Mab’s power left my soul. It would be worth it. I never wanted to feel this furious – this _helpless_ – again.

I was going through with the rescue, come hell, Hunt, or high water, even if it cost me my life.

I was never, ever going to feel this helpless again.

Slowly, painfully, I pulled my magic back in. I pulled _myself_ in, wrapping all my thoughts and feelings under a cold shell, retreating to the place I went whenever Maeve was playing with me and stopped paying attention long enough for me to gather my thoughts. I shut it all down, all my thoughts, all my feelings, emptying my mind except for one word: _Maggie_.

 _Find Maggie_.

The frost retreated. The air warmed.

Marcone didn’t even bother to look at me as he turned toward the door.

“I have no time for indulging in sentiment, Dresden. Maggie’s safety is far more important than you and I. Find her, and don’t get in my way again.”

His orders felt like the shock of ice against my skin used to, back when I was still able to feel cold. I clutched my pentacle tight in one hand, and my coat in the other, and kept my eyes fixed on the blinking clock on his cell phone, lying open and abandoned on the table behind him: 5:09 PM. Only thirty-one hours left.

 _Find Maggie_.

Karrin was going to save me. I was going to be free.

 _Find Maggie_.

Everything was going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Just in case anyone thought Marcone might be acting too nice. ;)


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter changed slightly to comply with edits. Warnings for canon-typical violence (i.e., Harry bashing bad things)!

_Janet has kilted her green kirtle_   
_A little aboon her knee,_   
_And she has broded her yellow hair_   
_A little aboon her bree,_   
_And she is to her father's ha,_   
_As fast as she can hie._

My Winter power was surging along with my repressed rage; it took barely any effort at all for a few drops of my blood and a whispered spell to make my pentacle jump and spin, sizzling cold frost all along the metal, leaping taut along its chain toward the north.

Last year, when I went to rescue my daughter, I’d taken the full complement of cavalry with me – all the people I knew, loved, and trusted, plus several hundred that I didn’t. I couldn’t count on my friends for help this time – they were already busy fleeing for their lives, because they’d tried to save me. All I had now was my staff, Mab’s duster, and Marcone.

Marcone, who was supposedly planning to _kill_ me. Marcone, whose fault all this was in the first place.

Marcone, who’d decided to install himself in the backseat beside me for the entirety of our half-hour drive, swaying close enough to brush my shoulders with each turn and twist after the amulet’s tracking pull.

I bowed my head, and ignored him, and struggled to hold my angerfearworry _need_ in enough control for the engine to keep running. Maggie was missing. And I was going to do anything – _anything_ – in my power to bring her back safe. Again.

My necklace lead us eventually to the North out of the city and out to the Raith estate.

I threw myself out of the car a step behind Marcone and onto a raging battlefield. There were troops of men in ambiguous black uniforms, and a whole bunch of the kind of unaffiliated mercenary-type monsters Mab typically sent me out to flambé for practice, and I caught a glimpse out of the corner of one eye of what might or might not have been a grey Warden’s cloak. Some idiot somewhere was throwing grenades; I saw one take out a whole chunk of the left wing.

I didn’t stop to check what side who was on, or who was fighting whom; I just swung my staff down and blasted fire indiscriminately over anything and anybody dumb enough to get in my way. Once a path had been cleared, I ran forward after the amulet, Marcone barely three steps behind me.

The amulet seemed to be pulling me into the house, as near as I could tell – I didn’t, honestly, pay that much attention to where I was going, as long as it was _toward Maggie_. Marcone must’ve directed his Einherjaren to help out, or something, or maybe they just knew where they were needed, because I caught sight of whole platoons of them darting in and out of the fray with an obviously clear idea of which side they were gunning for. I remember noticing that there were an awful lot of them, too, certainly more than there had been the last time I fought my way through the Raith grounds. What was Marcone _paying_ for this many mercenaries?

“Who is in _charge_ of these things,” I spat, as I poured fire down over the sixth glop-beast in a row. Marcone took a second to catch his breath before he answered – he was keeping pace gamely, but I had the amulet and six inches of leg on him, and I wasn’t about to make it any easier for him to follow.

“If we’re lucky, your Queen.”                                                            

“And if we’re _not_?”

Instead of answering, Marcone turned around and fired an entire clip into the gut of a man clad in ninja-black who’d been sneaking up behind me.

“Oh, Stars,” I breathed, watching the black-clad corpse collapse to my feet. The man’s mouth had fallen open as he died, and he was missing his tongue.

 _Denarians_ were after my daughter.

I shut my mouth, put my eyes forward, and focused on killing anything foolish enough to get in my way.

We ran into Lara at the mouth of the Deeps. She was wearing a tight black minidress that she’d decided to accessorize with four or five muscled bodyguards and an AK-47, and she looked like the world’s most dangerous orgasm.

She was also standing dead in the way of the tracker.

Lara immediately let go of the closest (now dead) black-clad soldier when she saw Marcone and straightened to lounge against the cavern wall, blood-spattered and luminescent. She gave him a smile that, even aimed at someone else, was still sultry enough to make me go weak at the knees. I caught myself swaying unconsciously toward her, pulled up short only when I bumped into one of the bodyguards’ AK-47s. Both the tracking spell and my dick agreed: right behind Lara was the right place to be.

“John, darling, you really must tell me when you’re planning a visit – I’d have dressed much more _appropriately_ for the occasion.”

Her tone of voice and the twinkle in her eye made it absolutely clear that in this case ‘appropriately’ meant ‘naked’, and I spent a few blissful seconds dazedly contemplating the resulting mental images before the tug of the tracking spell brought me back to reality.

“You need to move, Lara.” I told her.

She ignored me as thoroughly as if I’d been a stick of furniture.

“You’ll have to forgive all the excitement around here, John. Next time, I’ll be sure to arrange a more… _private_ reception.”

 “Who-” Marcone’s voice had dropped about an octave. He cleared his throat and started again. “Who’s attacking? How many are they?”

 “Many fewer, now that you and your Norse cavalry have arrived, I’d imagine. It’s the usual suspects – they turned up about three hours ago, following some of Winter’s dogs. But I’m sure your men have all that _well_ in hand. They haven’t managed to penetrate my defenses so far.” She took another step closer to Marcone – although not, I noticed, close enough to clear the entrance – and turned up the glow. “You’ve got a better grasp of the tactical situation, I’m sure. Where do you want me?”

Marcone wobbled a little, and made a grab at one of my shirtsleeves.

Lara was just in the middle of reaching out to run a hand up his chest (my was body really, _really_ okay with the increased proximity to her, despite the fact that she was both not actually touching me and still in the damn way) when one of the grenade-throwing idiots blew up a patch of ground barely ten feet away from us.

I staggered back upright with my ears ringing and _Maggie, Maggie, Maggie_ singing clearly through my blood again. Marcone launched to his feet as though galvanized and glared daggers at Lara.

“Try to enthrall me again in the middle of a combat situation, and I’ll withdraw all my assets and put a knife in your throat.”

Lara looked briefly irritated, but the glow died down, and she stepped aside with a Vannna White smile, leaving the cave entrance clear. I plunged down the tunnel, pushing light into my pentacle until its eerie white glow spread out to illuminate the whole passageway, harsh and brilliant and full of Winter, the very air seeming to threaten me forward with every pulse of my blood.

The problem with tracking spells is that although they pull you in a straight line toward your target, most cave systems aren’t built on straight lines. I sprinted back and forth down tunnel after zig-zagging tunnel, the air around me growing colder as we drew further underground, and each hundred yards that I traveled brought me barely a foot closer to the pull of the spell. I didn’t meet any more attackers – either Lara had been successful at guarding the Deeps’ entrance or we’d managed to outpace them all – but the painstaking process of tracing out the switchbacks, loops, forks, and mazed dead-ends of the Deeps caverns seemed almost agonizingly slow. Each time I made another turn, my veins ached with the wrongess of it, my magic revolting as it insisted I was _wrong_ , I was getting further away from Maggie...

An hour – an eternity – later, I turned down the lefthand tunnel out of an impossibly high-walled limestone chamber, and _finally_ felt the spell pulling me straight forward, straight at the entrance to an underground half-cavern where I could see torchlight shining through. My heart leapt once, briefly, relief surging through my veins as powerfully as adrenaline had a moment before.

“Maggie!” I yelled, slowing to a stumbling walk as exhaustion turned my muscles into putty. “Maggie? Are you in there? Are you okay-”

“Harry!” Thomas’s voice echoed out immediately. “She’s here, I’ve got her, the Fae followed us-”

“Well, well, well,” came a voice from behind me – a woman’s voice, a familiar woman, sounding so smugly satisfied that it stopped me in my tracks. “So _this_ is what the Winter hounds were hunting.”

I whirled around to see Dierdre stepping out from the corridor behind me as if from behind a veil, followed by fanatics, wreathed in unholy tentacles of hair and dripping with explosives, holding a gun out to point at the pair of us with a giant, shit-eating smile. “Daddy told me we needed to kill you as soon as I found you,” she grinned, “but I knew better. I knew you would lead me to something good. And it _is_ good, isn’t it? Margaret. That’s Dresden’s daughter's name. Dresden’s little girl from Chichen Itza two years ago, walking out away from her wards. My Daddy’s going to be so _very_ happy when he hears what you helped me find.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're baaaaaaaack! Sorry for the delay, guys - to make up for it, I'll be posting a chapter a day for the next week and a half, until we get to Part 4. Thanks for this section go to my amazing beta, jillyapple1, who taught me how to write fight scenes and patiently scrolled through my million-and-one stupid rewrites. Before you read this section, please go back and read through the rewritten versions of Chapters 13 and 14 - there are some seemingly minor edits in them that turn out to be important both here and later. 
> 
> Warnings for canon-typical violence and implied sexual abuse of children.

_There's neer a laird about your ha,  
Shall get the bairn's name._

I lunged forward after Dierdre, and Marcone put a repressive hand on my arm. I froze immediately, settling back into the combat stance I took with Mab. She liked me in front of her, so I would get attacked first; she said it was good practice.

“The girl is of no use to you.” His eyes were darting around the group of black-suited fanatics I could see coming up the corridor behind Dierdre, calculating angles and odds and attack possibilities. One of the fanatics had the sour, rotting tang of dark magic leaching off of him and around into the tunnel passage – he must’ve been the one veiling Dierdre and the others. I mentally kicked myself; if I hadn’t been so focused on Maggie, so focused on moving forward, I might have noticed that something was wrong. “She’s of no use to me. Tell your father that she has no part in this-”

“Sure she does,” said Dierdre, “she’s leverage. Don’t you remember, Baron, what happened last time we caught you with a little girl?”

Marcone’s breath hitched once, a tell that was almost certainly not fake, and his jaw muscles tightened underneath the skin next to his ragged ear. “Daddy told me all about how much you _like_ children, Baron.” She giggled – no, she _sniggered_ , adult and low and filthy, a sound that should never have come from the throat of a seemingly seventeen-year-old monster. “Maybe that’s what you want with that baby girl down there. You _love_ her, don’t you, Baron? Just like Daddy loves me. Daddy’s going to be so glad to have another girl to play with-”

I forgot all about Winter. I forgot all about orders, and all about Marcone. I _lunged_ for her.

“ _Forzare!_ ”

I didn’t regret for even one second the fact that the explosives draped all over Dierdre made my traditional fire-first attack impractical; I wanted to kill her at close range, with my own hands. I wanted to feel her die.

Mab, over the last two-and-a-bit years, had done a lot to help craft me into a better Knight: she had healed my wounds, given me a new wardrobe about a zillion times more flattering and comfortable than anything I’d ever owned in the real world, taught me meteorology and the fine art of torture (both the giving and receiving of) and enough etiquette and protocol to C3PO my way through approximately six zillion new and different kinds of Fae (the vast majority were just “hey you”; I was pretty high up on the etiquette food chain).

She’d also made me really, really, really good at killing things.

I advanced on Dierdre, swinging my staff around in a large circle to ward off the cloud of razor-sharp tentacle-hair swarming toward me, and combined Murphy’s hard-taught quarterstaff work with a handy new trick I’d picked up in Trinidad, transforming the end of my staff into a tiny, focused short-range welding torch that melted and fused the ends of her hair almost like a laser. Dierdre hissed and recoiled, staggering back into one of the fanatics surrounding her, firing two bullets that swung wide of me and hit the ceiling of the cavern. Marcone, somewhere behind me, was laying down cover fire, picking off two, three, six of the fanatics-

Dierdre fired off a shot from her pistol in Marcone’s direction, and with barely a thought I swung my staff aside to protect my master; ice locked around the bullet, making it crash with a dull thud down to spray its new three-foot casing of ice harmlessly across the tunnel floor. With my other hand, I reached out a gust of wind to catch the grenade coming toward _me_ , hurling it far back along the tunnel to explode and take out another two of her black-suited soldiers.

“Y’know,” I said, bringing my staff up and sideways without looking to block her tentacle-hair’s bid for my neck, “you really shouldn’t be so worried about why Marcone cares about Margaret Mendoza. What you should be worrying about,” I leveled the staff to send a blast of frost shooting toward her right foot, gluing it to the floor, “is that you _tried to touch my daughter_.”

Behind me, Marcone ran out of ammunition, and, instead of bothering to reload or grab another gun, simply threw himself knife-first at the two remaining mercenaries.

“As if anyone cares about _you_ , Knight,” Dierdre spat, another coil of tentacles coming up to block my attack as I crowded her back against the tunnel wall. “Everyone knows the Baron’s got a noose around your neck. You only dance when he’s pulling the strings.”

“I am getting really tired of everybody dropping all these mysterious hints all over the place,” I spat, bringing up my staff to glue another six of her tentacles to the wall with ice; while they cut their way out of that, I aimed a bolt of fire straight up at the locks reaching down behind me. “What, did Marcone write his evil plans for me on the Signatories’ locker room wall, or something?”

I dodged two tentacles and a punch, but Dierdre managed to strike me in one shoulder as I swept my staff down to ice her other foot to the ground, knocking me back across the tunnel just as Marcone came bloody-knived up and away from the corpse of the last fanatic, heading straight for her, right behind where I was standing-

_“…Find her, and don’t get in my way again.”  
_

Winter power flooded down my spine.

Before I knew what was happening, I’d lowered my staff and taken three fast steps out of his path. When I came back to myself, I was standing flat up against the tunnel wall with a strand of Dierdre's razor-edged hair settled in a noose around my neck.

I whipped my staff up, ready to blast ice and fire all over her goddamn hair, and the loop of her hair jerked upward, lifting my feet off the floor and sending pain searing in a ring around my neck, the bladed edge cutting into my throat-

I choked. The spell I’d been preparing burst apart, sending a lick of cold rattling around and down the tunnel and setting my magic reverberating around the inside of my skull. By the time the world stopped ringing, my feet were back on the ground and Marcone was staring at me, face white with shock, knuckles gone rigid around the stock of his gun.

Dierdre smiled at me, prettily, with all her teeth, and I felt the whisper-edge of her hair brush warningly over my neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps standing in its wake.

I shivered. I hadn’t had goosebumps since I was an ordinary mortal wizard; the sensation was unsettling, paradoxically more frightening than the familiar feeling of sharp knife-edges on my skin. Mab wasn't here to heal me now; if I was cut, I'd keep bleeding.

“I think you want to stop moving, Knight. You too, Baron, unless you want your new puppet broken.”

Well. If Dierdre really _wanted_ my death curse to freeze the blood solid in her veins, who was I to argue?

I was pretty sure I’d be able to kill her before her tentacle had the chance to cut my throat. It might not be how I’d have _chosen_ to save Maggie, but I could certainly think of worse ways to go. Holding carefully away from the razor-wire around my neck, I plunged deep, deep, deep into the well of my Winter magic, reaching for the power I’d need-

And then my whole body seized in pain, my magic rebelling and turning back upon me as my Queen’s command echoed through my mind:

_…do try not to die in the interim._

My back arched and I gagged, choking, as my muscles locked and spasmed. All control over my muscles and magic slipped away from me like smoke.  I could feel the sharp edge of Dierdre’s tentacle burst through my skin, sliding smoothly inside the layers of flesh around my throat-

“Don’t,” Marcone's voice came from somewhere nearby. Looking up, I could see that his face had gone white, eyes tracing over and over the skin of my neck; I felt a trickle of blood leak down in the wake of his gaze. “Enough. Tell me what you want. I’m willing to deal, as long as you keep him alive.”

He wasn’t pleading. I don’t think Marcone actually knew how to beg. But he sounded like he meant it.

“Put your weapon down on the ground,” Dierdre said.

 _Do try not to die_. _Do try not to die. Do try not to_ -

Maggie. I had to save Maggie. I had to fight.

 _Do try not to_ -

Marcone didn’t answer. He was staring at me, eyes stuck on- not on my eyes, but on my right hand. My shield bracelet.

His gun clattered to the floor between us.

“Very well.” Marcone’s voice had gone very high and flat, and somewhere behind the confusion of rageicecold _orders_ storming around my brain, a little voice whispered: _that’s not what he sounds like when he’s frightened_. “Very _well_ , fine, you can have the girl, I’ll put down my weapons, just for God’s sake don’t hurt Dresden-”

As he spoke, he was reaching down to strip off the shoulder and thigh holsters, tossing off his weapons belt, pulling throwing daggers up out of both boots and the small of his back and a looped garrote from his right sleeve. Finally, with obvious reluctance, he dug a single capped grenade out of his left pocket, glancing at me once before he sent it rolling gently over to Dierdre across the cave floor.

Slowly, careful not to think too closely about what I was doing or what an explosion might risk, I braced my feet against the ground and angled my body sideways, stretching my right arm out behind me toward the cave where Maggie was hidden.

“Is that all of them?” Dierdre demanded.

“Yes,” said Marcone, and threw the knife up his left sleeve straight through the tentacle looped around my neck.

I staggered for a second, unprepared to still be breathing – I thought he’d be aiming for Dierdre, for her grenades – and then pulled myself together and called out, “ _flickum bicus_!”

Fun fact about grenades: it's not the actual physical pulling-out of the pin that makes most grenades explode. Timed fuse grenades (unlike concussion grenades, which go boom whenever you hit them hard enough) actually contain a tiny electrical circuit that, once the pin's been pulled, sparks the whole thing into a fireball.

Making a timed fuse grenade explode from the outside is actually really difficult. There are some serious safeguards built into those things; otherwise, Dierdre would never have been comfortable carrying twenty-something of them hanging from her belt. I'm pretty damn powerful with raw combat casting, as far as wizards go, but even I am in no way good enough to blast through the shells of twenty or more grenades; I would maybe, on a good day, be able to make half go off.

But lighting tiny fires _inside_ twenty grenade casings?

That kind of thing was right up my alley.

At the same time, I launched myself backward across the tunnel, toward Maggie, following the Winter impulse of master _obey_ emanating off of Marcone, and threw every drop of the power I’d collected straight down into my shield.

The whole cave vanished under the noise and flash of a close-range explosion.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter: warnings for violence.

_If that I gae wi child, father,  
Mysel maun bear the blame_

Even before the ringing aftershocks of noise and light had time to clear, Marcone had thrown himself down beside me, hands tearing at the wire around my neck. He flung it violently away across the cave floor and turned back to trace his hands around and around the collar of blood my struggling had left.

“Maggie,” I coughed, fending him off with one hand and trying to ignore the sharp spikes of pain as his fingers brushed against the wound in my neck. _Find Maggie_. “I need to find Maggie, I have to see-”

“What were you _thinking_?” Marcone snapped. His eyes were glued to his own bloodstained fingers. “Why did you walk right up to her like that, God, Harry, you could have been killed-”

“You told me to,” I said, and then, when he just stared back with baffled confusion, elaborated: “You ordered me not to get in your way.”

Marcone’s eyes went wide, but before he could say anything, Lara’s voice came echoing down the hall from behind us.

 “ _Really_ , John, dear. Your new slave's penchant for melodrama can be awfully tiresome. Was it really necessary to literally blow the bitch back to hell?”

She was making her way coolly over the pile of rubble blocking the cavern, followed by a Raith bodyguard and three Einherjaren, with smears of fresh blood glowing red against her delicate flesh and her glorious hair tumbled everywhere across her shoulders.

Marcone was already moving up and away from me to face her, looking furious. “Where the _hell_ have you been? If you’d gotten here five minutes earlier, Dresden wouldn’t-”

Over in the corner, the tentacle that Marcone had pulled off me twitched, inching back over toward the large gory pile of bits-that-had-been-Dierdre-and-were-now-mostly-mixed-with-other-bits-of-the-surrounding-walls.

Lara and Marcone simultaneously fired the contents of two entire machine gun clips in its general direction. The twitching stopped.

Lara turned back to Marcone.

“I’ve been a little tied up supervising the disposal our remaining attackers. Your Einherjaren make extremely _lusty_ reinforcements.” She took a slinky step toward us, and gave Marcone a grin that sent icy sense-memories of some of Maeve’s more exotic recreational activities dancing over my skin. Somewhere over the last few hours, she seemed to have acquired several tears in her fashionable minidress, luring the eye in to the delicious pale beauty of her uncovered skin, vanishing and reappearing and vanishing and-

I ignored her, and headed for Maggie.

I had to scramble over a rockfall, tearing three or so boulders free, before I could clamber my way down into Maggie’s cave entrance. Whatever firelight had been illuminating the place had been extinguished. When I held up my amulet, I could see a large part of the cave’s ceiling had been shattered, rocks tumbled from side to side. I'd managed to shield Maggie the fire and force of the explosion, but my spell clearly hadn't been able to shield the cave itself.

Slowly, the tracking spell pulling me forward dimmed and died.

“Is anyone down here?” Marcone bellowed, stumbling up beside me, voice sounding as strained as the pulse in my eardrums. It was all so still, like- “Hello?”

A muffled noise sounded from over in the corner, behind a caved-in pile of rock. Thomas was crouched down facing the cave wall, both arms wrapped around a tiny, dark-headed figure. His body was tucked in around her, shielding her from the open air, so that just the top of her head – and one leg – were visible. His whole back was a mess of scarred gore. I felt sick; that was bone sticking out of Maggie's foot, of Thomas’s back-

“Maggie?” I asked, crouching down next to her; the name rang out rough and hoarse in my ears. _Her_ name. _Maggie_.

She stared back at me from under Thomas’s body, eyes blank and shaking. When I reached a hand forward, she flinched away.

“Maggie,” I whispered, eyes fixed on her face, trying to keep the guilt and horror out of my own voice. “Maggie, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you-”

“I don’t mean to alarm anybody,” Marcone interrupted in a very, very, very, very calm voice, “but I think I just saw Mr. Raith stir, and I don’t think anyone here wants him quite that close to the child when he begins to feed.”

Tearing my eyes from Maggie, I could see that, indeed, a telltale white glow had started to linger faintly around Thomas’s arms, creeping up his skin to where he’d collapsed over Maggie-

“I'll take him,” said Lara. Her voice sounded disinterested, but a tiny crease had appeared in the center of her perfect brow, and her movements as she lifted Thomas's still body were anything but careless.

Hells _bells,_ Thomas was hurt bad. I'd only seen him injured this badly once before, on the night he almost killed Justine. The night they both found out she loved him. The skin was hanging off of him in strips, pale, thin-white blood streaming in a steady drip down his legs onto the cold stone, and I knew Marcone was right. There was no way Thomas could come out of this without feeding off someone. Probably several someones. He would go into a mindless frenzy, and unless somebody could restrain him, he was going to kill.

“He’ll be taken care of,” Lara added.  She didn't take her eyes away from Thomas as she balanced his torso against her shoulder, and turned to sweep out of the room, ducking gracefully around piles of rock.

“Wait!” I tried hard to keep the panic out of my voice. Lara had no reason to listen to me – both she and Dierdre had made it pretty clear that as far as they were concerned, I was about as significant right now as Marcone’s little finger. “Don't- don’t let him kill anyone. Please.”

Lara didn't look back. She didn’t even respond.

“ _Lara_ -”

“Harry, Maggie needs medical attention,” Marcone’s voice in my ear, urgent and quiet enough not to be overheard, interrupted me mid-shout and drew my eyes immediately back down to Maggie’s corner. “Quickly, her foot-”

Maggie’s face had gone pale, and her eyes as she stared up at us looked glassy with fear.

Carefully, slowly, I crouched down beside her, reaching out a tentative hand – not too close, just close enough that she could touch me if she wanted to. I didn’t know if she would be frightened of me or not, but she needed to be carried out of here, and in the absence of anyone else, anyone better, I would have to do. Stars alone knew what I must look like to her: huge and battered and battle-scarred, stained in blood and charred ash and ick-fluid nearly to the waist, with a ring of gore drying around my neck. I could only hope that her memories of me from Chichen Itza would be stronger than her fear of Mab's monstrous, bloody executioner; that maybe, despite the blood on my face (on my hands) she might still find me trustworthy enough, not to- to hold her, not yet, just to touch-

Maggie sat forward and flung both arms around me.

I froze.

“I remember you,” she said. “You said you were my Dad.” She burrowed her head into my collar, and I felt her soft nose brush my neck. “Your coat smells different now.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, voice thick, and reached out – careful, so careful of the injured foot – to pick her up. She was bigger than I remembered from last time; sturdier around the arms and shoulders, and her legs (my eyes skipped around and over the stretch of splintered bone) had stretched out to toothpick-thin ankles, ridiculously coltish against the rest of her body.

She was gonna be a tall girl someday. Just like Susan.

Just like me.

“The vampire said you’d come,” Maggie mumbled. Her words had started to slur together, blurring her speech; the shock must be wearing off. She’d be hurting something fierce in a few seconds. I glanced over at Marcone, and was surprised to find him already standing beside me, right hand silently outstretched to offer a couple of white pills. I dropped my staff to take them and hold them up, flat-palmed, careful not to jostle her.

“Hey, Maggie, do you think you can take this medicine for me? It will help the pain a little. It’s safe, I promise.”

“You’re safe,” she mumbled, sending pain shooting sharp and hot through my chest like a dart. She reached out to take the pills from my hand without hesitation. “ _He_ wasn’t safe. That vampire. He came to Michael’s house. He said I had to go with him.” I kept my head tilted sideways, watching her fumble the pills, one after the other, into her mouth and chew. “I hit him. Hard, inna knees.”

Yep. This was _definitely_ Susan’s daughter.

“That was very smart of you, Maggie. You’re right, most vampires aren’t safe.”

“He wasn’t safe, but he kept _me_ safe. I ‘membered him from Mexico. We talked about Mama…” She yawned, nestling closer into my shoulder. The pills were making all her consonants run together, a mess of word soup. “We were gonna run away and hide together. I hope he’s ok.”

Her eyes were already sliding closed against my duster, mouth going soft and slack.

“Mama was safe. And Mama- Mama was a vampire too…”

“Your mom was very special,” I whispered, and tucked her a little closer into my arms. She didn’t move.

“An ambulance is on its way,” Marcone’s voice broke in from behind me. “The Einherjaren are standing by to watch over her until she can be brought back behind the Carpenters’ wards, and I have called up my men to find Daniel, Michael, and Charity Carpenter and appraise them of the situation, but, Harry, you will have to let somebody else carry her. There are machines-”

I stood up without bothering to answer him, and headed for the door.

I didn’t let go of Maggie until we reached the border of the Raith Estate, where I finally, carefully, lowered her down into the back of the waiting ambulance, and stepped away – far away. I turned back to accept the staff Marcone held out to me, and headed back up toward the manor, where Thomas was hidden somewhere, feeding off the helpless.

I couldn't be trusted around machines right now. I couldn't be trusted around hospitals; around the weak, the ill, the dying. I couldn't be trusted around my daughter. It was too late for me – I’d already become a monster. Now I had to stop Lara from letting my brother become one as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Yep, this is all going EXACTLY where you think its going. Oh, Harry, Harry, baby. Baby, why.
> 
> Incidentally, I have made a playlist for this fic (because yes, I am exactly that dorky). Is anyone interested? I don't want to spam you with my tunes, but I figured some nice cracky mood music would make a nice change from the heaviness of these chapters, since everything is about to get much, much worse for our erstwhile heroes before it gets better. But if no one is interested, I can keep it to myself. :)


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> White Court. Oh, White Court. The *things* you do to my ratings.
> 
> This note is to warn you that probably a good 75% of the archive warnings and trigger warnings on this fic are the direct result of the following scene. For that reason, it's been divided into two parts, the second of which will be posted tomorrow. If you are bothered by dub-con, non-con, rape, incest, explicit violence, death, explicit slash, or White Court mindfuckery, please turn away NOW. You can tune in again in the following chapter (Part 2 of this scene), where there will be lots of lovely ‘splainy-type dialogue provided for your convenience. 
> 
> On the other hand, if you have any love at all for Thomas’s issues, Harry’s issues, or the GIANT WHITE SPARKLY ELEPHANT IN THOMAS AND HARRY’S METAPHORICAL ROOM, then hold onto your horses, because this is the chapter when shit is about to get real.
> 
> The music for this chapter is the most perfectly Thomas-themed song ever written: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6f0AdWLXHE
> 
> (Now edited with extra porn!)

  _They'll turn me in your arms, lady,  
Into an esk and adder_

_…_

_But hold me fast, and fear me not,  
And ye shall love your child._

_Again they'll turn me in your arms_  
 _To a red het gand of airn,_  
 _But hold me fast, and fear me not,_  
 _I'll do you nae harm._

By the time we got back to the entryway of the house, Lara was already there to greet us, wearing a fresh skintight negligee and a welcoming smile.

“I’m afraid your noise brought the police calling, John. They’re around back poking at harmless things, but it would be best if you stayed indoors until Madeline has finished…distracting the officers. Can I get you anything while you wait?”

“No thank you,” Marcone said, in his very iciest tones. “I would not wish to presume too much upon Raith hospitality.”

Their eyes glittered at each other.

Lara’s gaze darted from Marcone’s face to my hand on my staff to the drying ring of gore around my neck. Slowly, she smiled and tossed her hair over one shoulder, letting out a delicate laugh that immediately drew my attention back to the movement of her neck and her shoulders and her breasts and her…everything.

“Oh, John, darling, you do make the most _interesting_ partner.”

Marcone must’ve caught sight of the look on my face, because he grimaced before elaborating: “ _Business_ partner. Ms. Romany is invested in a number of my current endeavors, including Brighter Futures.”

Right. I had less than zero time for this.

“What have you done with Thomas?”

“Please, do not feel as if you are a burden, John.” Lara acted as if I hadn’t even spoken, a light smile gracing her perfect features as she insinuated herself further into Marcone’s space. “I and mine are more than willing to provide hospitality for as long as you require. For you _and_ your Knight. I would not wish to be so rude as to leave any guests… _unsatisfied_.”

“Where’s Thomas?” I demanded, shoving my way squarely in front of Marcone so that Lara was forced to take a step back and actually look at me. She did so with very visible reluctance.

“Thomas is being healed and fed.” She stepped delicately sideways around me to meet Marcone’s eyes again, skin shimmering under the golden glow of the lights. “I’m sure you could benefit from similar assistance, but if you will not allow me to call our House doctors, let me at least get you something to eat and drink.”

She waved a hand, and a red-haired Raith sister, one I hadn’t met yet, came through the door behind her, bearing a tray of brightly-colored fruit, strawberries and dark passionfruit and mango, set beside two heaping plates of pasta, salad and steak-

I’d had nothing to eat except three bagels and half a pastrami sandwich since starting this assignment twenty-nine hours ago, and the girl looked even better than the food did.

My stomach grumbled.

Another Court servant, glowing with completely human youth and freshness, wandered over and brushed up against my chest as she stepped in to offer Marcone a goblet of red wine, and I took a large step backward. I remembered what had happened the last time I drank anything handed to me in a vampire’s house.

“Yeah, we’ll stop back later for dinner and a show, thanks,” I said, sidestepping the mini-Raith. “I want to see Thomas. I want to make sure you haven’t let him kill anyone.”

“Thomas is fine,” Lara interrupted me hastily – too hastily? “You will be able to see him later; for now, it would be best if you remain-”

My eyes narrowed.

“Where is Thomas?”

“I am sure that he would not wish to have you near him at the…current moment,” said Lara, words edged with soft, half-amused understanding; hints of what Thomas was having somewhere right now, what I could have if I wanted. “Why don't you stop worrying about him? Merely wait here with me, and he will be brought to you later-”

Lara was using a glamour on me. Lara hadn’t bothered to White-whammy _me_ specifically even once since I showed up at her gates under Marcone’s orders.

Lara wasn’t like Madeline, or Lord Raith, or her other sisters. Lara wasn’t…well, she wasn’t usually this _obvious_. She didn’t make a habit of relying on glamour to get what she wanted. She didn’t normally have to. Even her constant flirting with Marcone seemed to be more in the nature of a private joke than a serious attempt at enthralling him. After all, he was a vanilla mortal; if she’d really wanted to tap that, I had no doubt he’d already be under her power. Instead, he was almost suspiciously clear-headed, for a man with no long-term lovers.

If Lara was trying to mind-whammy me into forgetting about Thomas, then that meant there was something badly, badly wrong.

Slowly, I shook out my shield bracelet, and set my staff firmly down on the floor.

“I want to see Thomas. _Now_.”

Lara turned up the dazzle so strong, I felt myself swaying forward onto the tips of my toes in her direction.

“Of course. In a few hours. Meanwhile, I would be more than happy to-”

I yanked at my amulet, muttered curtly over it, and watched as it spun and leapt on the end of its chain to point up the stairs behind Lara.

I followed it.

Lara smiled, nervousness starting to leak through the edges of her smile – with every step I advanced toward her, the glamour became an almost physical _pull_ against my skin, tempting, drawing me off course.

“Perhaps you would prefer to be shown to a telephone, first, to contact your missing daughter; the machines may be delicate, but I am sure that, for a few moments, we could arrange-”

“Take me to my damn brother,” I growled, digging my palm in against the metal of my pentacle to distract me from the heat of her skin, “or _get out of my way_.”

Lara’s mouth opened, but I was already shoving up the stairs and around her, arousal like a tingling burn on my skin where I’d brushed against her. I slammed open the door at the top of the stairs with a wave of wordless fury, following the amulet’s pull down the hall and to the right-

I opened the nearest door, and stopped short at the sight inside.

A young, dreadlock-wearing teenaged boy, a redheaded woman, a blonde man …more than four bodies, five, were littered across the ground in various states of undress and unconsciousness, and Thomas was still feeding- moaning and groaning and glowing so hot it sent even my nerves to tingling, writhing naked in the arms of- of-

I was moving across the room before I could _think_ , before I finished consciously processing the scene in front of me, fury pounding in so strong my veins it completely swamped every trace of White Court thrall. I grabbed Lord Raith by the naked shoulder and hauled him bodily away from my brother so hard he crashed into the far wall.

Coldness, non-fae coldness, was pulsing from him in waves; his skin glistened and gleamed white under the candlelight, but he wasn’t moving to get up off the ground, and underneath the wild glow he looked unappealingly old, skin weirdly papery and grey. The bruises I’d left didn’t seem to be healing.

Behind him, Lara stood gracefully poised in the doorway, looking utterly unsurprised.

She took one look at my face and scurried over to grab Raith’s unbroken arm, tugging him to his feet with deceptive gentility.

“Thomas is done eating now, Papa. That’s enough, you can go-”

“You mean,” I snarled, “Thomas’s _father_ is finished being _fucked and murdered by_ _him_.”

“Ahhhhh,” Raith sighed, eyes dancing over my bloodied neck, my staff, my hands and face. He looked drugged out of his mind. “Dresden. So like your mother. Thomas never did quite taste quite the same-”

“Touch him again,” I barely recognized the sound of my own voice. “Either of you, come near him again and I’ll kill you.”

Lara had gone white, backing her father’s half-limp body quickly away toward the door, and didn’t answer; Raith just leered at me.

“Outsider’s fury. Delicious. I wonder if you would taste like Margaret now?”

“ _Pyrof_ -” I started to snarl, but in the instant between the time the spell made its way into my mind and out of my staff, the door had already slammed shut behind them.

I scorched it anyway.

After the surrounding plaster wall had collapsed into little scraps of floating ash and charcoal, and the last of the flames had died down to little flickers, I made my way back across the room, over the limp bodies, to grab Thomas by the shoulder and drag him up from where he’d fallen, rutting mindlessly against the bare chest of the unconscious redhead, soft desperate sounds like whimpers coming from his mouth. His movements were listless and weak.

“Thomas,” I said, quietly, calmly. Carefully. “Thomas, you have to stop feeding.” He shuddered, reaching out to pull me toward him, rubbing up against my coat, cool waves of _want_ pulsing out from his body, crawling up and over my skin. One of my hands seemed to have found its way into his hair; the other, thank God, was still gripping my staff, my knuckles gone white-edged in automatic fear against the strangeness of tingling _heat_ flooding my senses.

“Thomas,” I said, voice ringing distant in my ears as I lifted a hand to push him away, “Thomas, you have to stop. You don’t want this, _I_ don’t want this-”

I could feel his teeth send sparks dancing down through my skin like electricity, like the worst kind of Summer fire. This wasn’t- this wasn’t my Queen, this wasn’t Winter, this was _wrong_ -

Somehow, my shirt had come halfway unfastened; Thomas’s hands were tracing maddening patterns along one forearm and against and over my nipples, while lower down, his bare legs-

I couldn’t control my own body. Stars help me, I couldn’t stop myself from arching back into him.

His teeth found the tendon against the side of my neck, just as one hand finished its winding path down my chest and into my trousers.

My whole body jolted.

“Thomas!” My voice broke.

It was nothing like being with Mab or Maeve. It was nothing like being with Murphy. It felt _wonderful_ , all the pesky feelings of horror and fear and disgust slipping out of my mind like melting snow to be replaced with the promise that wonderful, tantalizing things were in store for me if I would only let go and let him get _closer_. It was- it was more than okay, it was- it was delicious. Every time he touched me, every time our skin brushed, he sighed and shuddered as if my pleasure was his pleasure, like the best thing in the whole world for him at that moment would be seeing me fall apart. And yet some part of my brain kept insisting it wasn’t… right, something about this wasn’t right. I wasn’t in Winter, I wasn’t with my Queen, so why should I feel scared, why did I still want it to-

“Stop. _Please_ , Thomas, you have to _stop_ -”

The tongue laving a bruise against my neck suddenly vanished and Thomas’s face loomed up in front of me, eyes glowing a bright, unseeing, alien silver. Like beautiful mirrors.

He looked like his sisters. He looked like his father.

He didn’t look like my brother at all.

“Thomas.” My voice had deepened to a hoarse, rasping growl; I had to work to force the words out around the unnatural heat flooding my senses. Dizzily, I made a grab for his wrist, fighting to pull him away from me instead of in and _closer_ where my dick kept insisting he belonged.

My dick and I compromised; his hand stayed where it was.

“Thomas, _please_. Please, you have to stop, it’s Harry, _I’m_ _Harry_ -”

“Harry,” Thomas mumbled – purred, really: my ears, this close to him, insisted on turning everything into sex noises, obscene and ugly.

My nerves were buzzing so fiercely they almost hurt; I could feel his nails digging into my wrist, over my pulse. I wanted him to touch me again. I wanted him to _let go and get away_. I wanted-

“Love you,” Thomas sighed, eyes blank, and bent his head back to my collarbone.

I felt the last niggling strands of resistance beginning to seep away under the slick of his tongue, the throbbing, almost painfuly tight grip of his hand. The arm that I’d brought up to shove him away seemed to have melted into an embrace when confronted with the delicious, _delicious_ feeling of his bare skin under my fingers. I couldn’t string a sentence together to protest again; hell, I could barely catch my breath. I couldn’t even focus enough to reach for my magic.

So I brought my staff around and clubbed him in the ribs.

Thomas staggered sideways, nearly falling, and let go of me. I felt the wash of cold air against my body, and for one horrible vertigo-inducing second had to struggle against sense memories of Maeve and Mab. It was like seeing double, the Winter horror imposed over the sick violation of throbbing arousal, and the most disturbing thing of all was that I still had to fight to convince myself that not touching Thomas anymore was a _good_ thing.

“No,” I panted, bringing my staff up between us to keep him at arm’s length. “ _No_. Thomas, listen to me. You need to stop. I’m _Harry,_ I’m telling you, you have to stop now.”

“Harry,” he gasped. “Don’t-can’t eat Harry. Harry- doesn’t want-”

“No, Thomas.” I gripped my staff a little tighter, and tugged my coat closed. “I don’t want you to eat me.”

He shuddered once more, eyes focusing and unfocusing as he blinked up at my face, before every muscle in his body tensed once and went still.

The glow died down. My blood slowed.

“…Harry?”

The cuts around his shoulder and throat looked days old now, and although he was holding his ribs funny, there was no more bone or gore poking through his naked skin. Without the preternatural white glow of sex surrounding him, he looked very small. Very cold.

I yanked off my duster clumsily – it was almost painful to let go of my staff, my right hand had locked so tightly around the wood – and tossed it awkwardly across his shoulders, tugging my clothes back together. Thomas pulled it to him gratefully, arms stretching forward to reveal bite marks, hickeys and bruises, trailing all down his left side, barely half-healed, across his back and…

I turned to look at the windows until he was done.

As I shuffled back around, my foot brushed against something on the floor- one of the bodies. A girl. A little girl, barely fourteen or fifteen, and she-

Whatever Lara had said, I knew the look of dead bodies. And that little girl wasn’t breathing.

I froze, shaking, as all the tension in my body threatened to rush up out of my stomach.

“Thomas…”

I looked up to see him looking down at the body, but unlike me, his eyes had no horror in them, only mild distaste. He looked up and met my gaze, and the distaste slowly melted into disappointment and guilt, and a horrible, broken kind of resignation.

I whirled back away from him, savagely, and leveled another bolt of fire strong enough to blast the remaining, unlocked door to pieces.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Thomas didn’t say a word – not one word – as he followed me out.


	18. Chapter 17 Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for discussion of incest, discussion of non-con, discussion of slash, discussion of murder attempts, PTSD, and a whole bucketload of Whampire Whangst.

The hallway outside was empty – I guess Lara had given orders for her people to leave me alone, or maybe they’d all just decided to run when they saw the walls catch on fire. The flames had died down a little, but the air was still ashy with smoke and I could still smell the charring corpses from the room behind us when I finally stopped and slid shakily down to prop myself up against the baseboard.

Thomas came to a halt a careful twenty feet away from me, his eyes glued to the floor beside my feet. After a few minutes, he came over to sit on the carved wooden bench above me. He was so quiet that if I hadn’t been looking for him I would never have known he was there.

I cleared my throat. It seemed – easier if I didn’t look at him. “Are you all right?”

Thomas laughed – actually laughed, and it barely even sounded hysterical. “Am _I_ all righ-” He caught a glimpse of the look on my face and stopped abruptly, sobering.

“I’m fine. I’m... healed, mostly.” He drew my coat in a little closer around himself. “I think Lara meant for me to kill him.”

“Yeah.”

The perfect alibi, to explain the death of a father she’d fucked into mindless slavery. The perfect excuse to have her half-brother executed. The perfect scheme to eliminate one puppet patriarch and make way for another – I didn’t know why Lara would want to do it. Hell, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know about – to think about – any of it.

“She’s been getting tired of him,” Thomas said, echoing my thoughts. “She wants an heir, and Dad’s efforts in that direction have never been particularly effective. I think Mom’s death curse might have left him impotent in more ways than one. I had thought she’d been looking into other ways of curing that, after I caught her messing around with Dad’s old ritual books the other day.”

I sucked in my breath. The ritual Thomas was talking about had last been used by his father had tried to cut his heart out and sacrifice him to an Outsider in exchange for the obliteration of our mother’s death curse. The idea that Lara wanted to get involved with any kind of Outsider magic was frankly terrifying. Outsiders were more than evil, they were antipathic to the very fabric of life and reality. Even the weakest were powerful enough to level cities, to bring kingdoms to their knees.

“But I guess she didn’t really want me dead, or Dad fixed,” Thomas continued. His voice sounded almost unnaturally clinical, passionless. “I should've known - arcane rituals aren’t really Lara’s style. It'd probably be easier for her to make me her new puppet anyway. So she waits until I’m starving and can’t fight, feeds me Dad to take the edge off, and then offers herself up as the main course in the banquet. That way, she gets me to impregnate her, gets a chance at enthralling me, gets a way to knock off Dad – three birds, one stone.”

Bile rose in the back of my throat.

“But- you- Empty _Night_ , Thomas, she can’t think you’d- that you’d ever-”

“Of course I tried to fight it!” He snarled, misinterpreting entirely my wide-eyed horror. “Of _course_ I would fight her, Harry, I fought _you_ , I- Do you think I would ever – _ever_ do…that…if I’d been in my right mind? But you- you don’t know what it’s like, with the Hunger. You don’t know what it’s like in this _family_.”

He was shaking.

“I would _never_ bring a child into this world that would have to live with this. If I were- our mother should have killed me in the womb, when she realized what I’d become. If I had my way, I’d geld every last one of us, tie up all of my sisters’ tubes, so no child would ever be born a Raith again-”

I put a hand on his shoulder, and he silenced.

Slowly, his hand unpeeled from the bench he was sitting on, leaving cracks in the heavy oak wood.

“You protected Maggie,” I said, eventually. “Thank you.”

Thomas turned around for the first time to face me, staring incredulously.

“Harry…I _killed_ people back there. You saw me kill people, I- Jesus Christ, I tried to eat _you_. You should hate me right now.” His eyes were wide with disbelief. “Why don’t you hate me?”

I kept my eyes carefully fixed on the blank white wall ahead – not looking at the luxurious, blood-velvet drapes, or the gold carpet, or the burnt space where the door had been, or over at Thomas. Not at my hands, lying loose in my lap, or the red stains underneath my fingernails, leftovers from the fight down into the Deeps. Unlike Mab, Marcone couldn’t clean me with magic, and I hadn’t had a bath for a while now.

I wished I could say I didn’t know what it was like, to kill that many people. I wished I could say that I hated him for it.

Mostly, I wished I didn’t feel so damn _sick_ at the sight of my own brother’s bare skin.

“I… I’ve killed people too,” I said eventually, the words sticking in my throat. “I- At Puerto Rico, last August, my Queen ordered me to slaughter nineteen Summer Changelings. All of them- all under twelve years old. They were all girls. All little Latina girls, all brown-eyed, with Susan’s- they had Susan’s hair-”

“Jesus,” Thomas said, staring. “Jesus, Harry, fuck.”

“You didn’t mean to do it,” I shrugged. “I dunno if that makes anything better, but – it’s what I tell myself. You didn’t mean to. I didn’t mean to.”

Thomas laughed, bitter and cracked like dried blood.

“And you think that means I’m not a monster?”

“No,” I said, slowly. “But…I don’t know. I just- the more I work with Marcone, the more I keep thinking…maybe a monster isn’t such a bad thing to be.”

“I’m sorry about Murphy,” Thomas’s voice broke the silence, after a few minutes, startling me; it took a moment to process the words, and when he did, it sent my brain spinning sideways, breath hitching with fear.

“Murphy? What do you mean, is she- is Karrin okay? Mab didn’t get her-”

“No, no! No, she’s safe. Or, at least, I haven’t heard anything to indicate otherwise.”

“Oh.” I relaxed. “Good. What about her?”

Thomas’s eyes slowly narrowed.

“…Harry. I fed off of you back there.”

“I-” my voice cracked. “No you didn’t.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow at me.

“Uh, yeah, Harry. I did.”

“No you didn’t,” I said automatically, hands reaching up to grab at the sides of my duster. “You were feeding off- off your dad back there, you were out of control, and I stopped you – _you_ stopped-”

“I know. And we can go back to pretending it all never happened as soon as this damn Hunt is over for all I care, but Harry…I could _taste_ you.”

I flinched.

“It should never have happened,” he continued, voice even and calm, “and I’m sorry it did; I’m glad you stopped me and I’ll be glad forever that it never went any further than that. But you have to know what this means, Harry. You and Murphy aren’t in love. Not really. Not enough to make this work.”

I dragged a trembling hand up through and over my hair, and tried my best to keep my face still.

“I am sorry,” Thomas offered again, voice gentle.

“Karrin loves me,” I protested, voice weak. “She said so. She- Karrin wouldn’t lie-”

He’d _fed_ from me? But…

Thomas rolled his eyes.

“Of course she _loves_ you. She loves you just as much as any of the rest of us do, but, Harry, she isn’t in love with you.” He lifted one of his hands in front of his face and twisted it idly, eyes stuck on the slowly healing, finger-shaped bruises around the wrist, and his expression went hard and bitter. “Trust me. I’d know.”

“Marcone’s going to go through with the rescue anyway,” I realized aloud. My mouth went dry, remembering the look that had been on his face just after he got the call about Maggie, the heat of all-too-familiar steel in the back of his green eyes as I knelt down before him.

“Yeah,” agreed Thomas, “he probably is.”

I let out a dry laugh. “You think he’s doing all this in good faith?”

“Not even a little.”

I looked down at my hands, clutched tight over my staff. A lot of the blood on them had come from Dierdre; from monsters, from the Denarian henchmen I cut down on my way to the Deeps, but some of it had come from my own neck.

“Yeah,” I said, quietly, “me either.”

Neither of us said anything about trying to fix the botched ritual. Neither of us mentioned the obvious: that there wasn’t anybody else to find. I wasn’t- I wasn’t loved enough, there wasn’t anybody _I_ loved enough, to make this rescue work.

Thomas could have survived this, if it’d been him in my place. Thomas had Justine.

Thomas had sold himself to Marcone to save me, and it was my fault that we were all going to fail. _  
_

Marcone found us after about twenty minutes, or possibly forty. I was so tired that I’d nearly fallen asleep sitting up against the wall next to Thomas; I couldn’t seem to get together the energy to move.

“Mr. Raith. I have a suit of clothes waiting in the room next door. I’ve also called Ms. Beckitt to have a few of the girls brought around, if you-”

Thomas shot bolt upright.

“ _No_. No, I- I’ll heal on my own, thanks.”

Marcone didn’t respond, just stepped carefully back, gesturing down the hall. Thomas started forward, then paused, and held a fist back out toward me, a hesitant look on his face.

“Hey, Harry? Nice left hook.”

In spite of myself, I grinned as I reached up to bump his fist with mine. Looks like I was getting my brother back after all.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go change. Mab’s gonna be angry if I don’t get my coat back, and I want all your dumb stink washed out of it.”

He nodded, gave me a small smile, and vanished. Marcone wandered over to stand in his vacated spot.

I sighed, and shoved myself upright again, ready for marching orders, but he just stared at me.

“Thomas Raith is your brother.”

It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t bother to answer.

“I… your brother. _Really._ ”

“Yup.” The look on Marcone’s face, like a cat doused in water, almost tempted me into laughing at him, except that I had a feeling, if I started, it would come out high and unsteady and wild, and I might not be able to stop.

“Thomas Raith is your _brother_.”

“Half-brother, actually. Unless some other Margaret LeFay gave birth to us both.”

“My- Harry, I believe I owe you both a most sincere apology. My God, no wonder you looked so horrified back at the offices, I-” He looked genuinely appalled, almost (possibly?) hurt.

“No worries,” I shrugged. “It’s not like we don’t go out of our way to cover it up, anyway. Easier for everyone involved to think we used to fuck.”

That made Marcone shut up, for some reason, the obscure pain in the back of his eyes deepening into something more complex.

“Harry, you have an extraordinary family.”

I wanted to laugh – _this_ qualified as family? Thomas had just very eloquently proved how very dramatically we _failed_ as a family, in all the most important ways. We were only family by the standards of an exceptionally dysfunctional group of Addamses – but the note of sincerity in Marcone’s voice startled me into silence.

I bit back a harsh laugh, and scrubbed a hand roughly across my face. All the places where Thomas had touched me, had licked…well, anyway. They still stung, faintly, for all that I knew it was all in my head, and ever since our conversation I couldn’t seem to stop itching at them. I wanted them _gone_.

“Yeah. Something like that.” Something in my face made Marcone look away, finally, and I was able, finally, to drag the words up from my throat, as weighty and slippery as the most difficult water magic.

“Hey. So it turns out this whole true love thing may not be meant for me after all. I- it looks like the White Court can still feed off of me. Karrin…Karrin didn’t work.”

Marcone’s eyes went wide, then sharp, narrowing to a green so bright I could practically taste it as he glanced back down the hall after Thomas, and I flinched away as much from the note of sympathy in his face as from the sudden touch of his hand on my arm, right on the place where Thomas’s fingers had clung to me.

“Harry-”

“I’m gonna go see if the Carpenters have reached the hospital yet.” I stood up, hauling my staff with me. “You can…go round up your troops, or something. Maybe reevaluate this whole Hunt plan, if you want, I dunno. Just – I thought you should know.”

Know that the certain death and hell I had brought upon all of our heads was, in the end, ultimately pointless. Know that, even after everything he and Thomas and Murphy had been through, had put _themselves_ through, all their best-laid plans had turned out to be for nothing. Know that I wasn’t saveable after all.


	19. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta's back! My beta's back! :D :D :D I am singing with joy right now.
> 
> As a celebratory present, she has persuaded me to edit the first and second parts of Chapter 17 - I recommend going back and reading them, as they now contain 70% more Thomas/Harry porn and some relevant plot points. Also, have a chapter!

_Or why comes thou to Carterhaugh  
Withoutten my command?_

Fifteen or so minutes later, I finally hung up the phone, feeling empty and shaky with exhaustion and stress. No one seemed to know where Michael or Charity or Daniel was, although three different kids on three different cell phones had each agreed to pass messages along as soon as they knew something, and Amanda - the only one besides Daniel with a driving license – had volunteered to go take her siblings and the Einherjaren watching them down to watch Maggie at the hospital. I’d tried plenty of other numbers: Butters, Mort, Father Forthill, and – my heart in my mouth – Murphy, but they all went immediately to voicemail. Or, in the case of Father Forthill, to a prerecorded message reminding me of the opening hours of St. Mary of the Angels and a recommendation to call on God for peace and solace.

I was pretty sure that God wasn’t gonna pick up the phone either.

I hoped everybody was okay. I hoped my friends weren’t dead. I hoped my daughter was safe, that Marcone’s men wouldn’t reach the hospital before Amanda did, that-

A sizzling electrical crackle burst out from the handset pressed to my ear, and I threw it across the room hard enough to smash the most expensive-looking crystal nudist figurine within eyesight.

Petty? Me? Yes. But it had been that kind of day.

And of _course_ , when I turned around, Marcone was watching me. His expression, I saw with some degree of trepidation, seemed troubled – but he was looking not at the wanton destruction I’d perpetrated on his ally’s expensive crystal statuary, but on the ring of blood, crusted and drying, that circled my neck.

“Harry. I believe I owe you an apology.”

Right. As if an apology was going to do any good at all to Maggie- to Murphy, to Michael and Butters and Charity and Thomas- to _me_ -

“As soon as Maggie reaches the hospital,” I said, surprising myself with how calm my voice came out, “I want you to make sure Amanda and her siblings are allowed to see her. And the second – the _second_ – she’s released from the hospital, I want you and your men as far away from her and the Carpenter house as you can possibly get.”

Marcone didn’t answer. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him tense up.

“Did you hear me?” I snarled. “You are going to stop. Watching. My. Daughter.”

“Harry – she isn’t _safe_.” I opened my mouth to protest, to explain about the angel, and he cut me off. “Forget whatever supernatural defenses the Carpenters may have – all anyone would have needed, these past two years, would be to hire a petty human thug to smash through a window and snatch her, and she would be left helpless. If they put in even a little effort, they might not even need a human; they can get to her whenever she steps outside, when she goes to school-”

“The point,” I spat, “was that she would be _able_ to go outside. To have a normal childhood-”

“ _Fuck_ normal,” snarled Marcone. The sudden profanity made me jump; he looked furious, eyes blazing bright green. “She isn’t safe, Harry! And as long as you’re pretending she is, you- you’re covering her head with a blanket and leaving her to the tigers. They _will_ find her, Harry, no matter how deep you bury her. They will find out that you love her and they will hurt her and kill her and-”

He checked himself abruptly, his whole body jerking still.

“It’s stupid,” he finished, after a second. For the first time, his professional-businessman impassivity didn’t seem remotely convincing. “It’s stupid, and it’s dangerous, and you’re going to get her killed. Or worse.”

Somewhere on the air, fainter than imagination, came drifting the smell of crushed roses.

“…Marcone,” I heard myself ask, my voice ringing distant and faraway in my ears, “what happened to Amanda Beckett?”

He went immediately silent _,_ knuckles going white-edged against his gun, and just like that, I knew. Because he hadn’t reproached me, or turned on me, or ordered me silent, and I’d just spilled the biggest secret he owned out into the open air.

The only way Marcone would let me ever say her name out loud like that was if Amanda were already dead.

He looked up at me, straight in the eyes.

“Denarians.”

All my anger drained away like sunlight off of Winter ice, leaving me with naked horror.

“I-” I searched for and found my voice. “Shit, John, I’m sorry.”

“It happened nearly nineteen months ago,” he said, in a horrible empty dead voice, “back when there was still some debate about whether you were actually dead, or just missing. I’m not- I’m not a good person, Harry. I think you are aware that I used Amanda as a form of…validation, for my actions. To prove I wasn’t a monster.”

My left hand tightened reflexively over the leather of my duster, the buttons digging into the scar, now healed, that had once been burned there around the shape of Lasciel’s sigil, brushing over Thomas’s bruises-

Yeah. I got what that was like.

“Amanda was gone, and the magical world had started going fucking apeshit, and you- you died. You _left._ It was…not a very good time for me.”

He scrubbed a hand over his face, looking suddenly weary.

“When I began my research on the project of freeing you, it became rapidly apparent that in order for the ritual to work, I would need to find someone you cared about deeply. I sent Childs around to question your friends, which went about as badly as could be reasonably expected, and I put both you and several of your allies under surveillance. I also, on the advice of Mr. Hendricks, asked Waldo Butters personally for an evaluation of your loyalties and affections.”

 _Butters_. Butters, the only one of all of us that had ever trusted Marcone. How much had he known about what Marcone had planned?

“Mr. Butters said that the people you cared most deeply for were Thomas Raith and Karrin Murphy, but you also had strong ties to the Carpenters. This surprised me, as you had failed to visit their house since their daughter’s estrangement. I believed that differing views regarding Miss Molly Carpenter’s recent actions might have driven you apart. So I put their house back on my watch list, and I found- I found-” He swung his gaze up to meet mine.

“There was a little girl living there. A little girl with your eyes.”

I started. Marcone and I spent so much time glaring at one another over the years that I could probably draw his eyes from memory, but it was profoundly unsettling to realize the fascination went both ways – that he could recognize my daughter, my child, just from one look at her face.

“I failed to protect Amanda. I failed to protect you, I failed my city, I- I wanted to try protect her. I am aware that you must have wanted no attention drawn to her existence, and I apologize if my surveillance may have put her in danger. But I-” his voice had trailed off to a whisper, staring at his white-knuckled hands on the edge of the table. I cleared my throat, finding my own voice hoarse, too, and quiet.

“You needed something to save.”

He bowed his head.

“I apologize for overstepping the bounds of what was mine.” His teeth were gritted; it plainly cost him to say as much, but at least he sounded halfway sincere, and I felt something twist inside me as the last remnants of my anger fell away, leaving me feeling sick and empty.

Because, by the Stars, I knew what it was like to lose everything you ever cared about. John loved Amanda, with a love as pure and selfless and terribly, dangerously deep as the love I had for Maggie.  All he'd cared about, all he'd worked for, for the latter and, I was willing to bet, the better half of his life, was trying to keep children safe. Trying to keep _her_ safe. And even though she’d been killed, even though everything he held dear had fallen apart, he was still trying to protect children. To protect Maggie.

He’d meant well.

I knew too damn well what it was like to walk a road paved with good intentions.

I took a deep breath, but before I could say anything the door slammed open behind us.

“Harry!” Thomas was standing out-of-breath in the doorway, dressed in nothing but jeans and bandages, with my coat draped over one shoulder and his Desert Eagle gripped tight in one fist. He looked terrified, his eyes wide and his glossy hair slick with sweat. “Harry, Lara says there’s a visitor waiting to see you, she says she’s here about the Winter Queen-”

Oh _no_.

I’d known this was coming. I’d dreaded this was coming, and still, when the moment got here, it was worse than I thought.

God, I was tired.

“Ah.” Marcone stood up casually, rolling his shoulders and straightening out both cuffs. “Better meet Winter at the gates, I suppose. I’ve brought enough trouble to Ms. Romany today already.”

“How did they find us?” I asked Thomas. Marcone snorted.

“The question isn’t _how_ she found us, Harry; it’s what took her so long. By my estimations, your godmother discovered our plans easily twenty-four hours ago, and it shouldn’t have taken the Winter Queen even half that long to find Karrin Murphy and kill her.”

It wasn’t cold. We were inside, I _knew_ it wasn’t cold, I couldn’t feel cold weather _anyway_ these days, but my body kept insisting that the temperature in the hallway had just dropped thirty or forty degrees.

“What,” I started, and had to stop. Pushing the words out was like trying to push through concrete; my brain just wouldn’t seem to _work_.

I tried again.

“What- no, Karrin isn’t dead. Karrin can’t be-”

“Harry,” Marcone said gently, “you knew the risks when you started this.”

“Uh, actually,” interrupted Thomas, “I’m pretty sure the visitor isn’t here about Murphy.”

“What?” I blinked, and felt like air was coming through my lungs again. “Wait, then who is it?”

Thomas actually flinched.

“It’s your apprentice. The Ragged Lady. _Please_ come, she- she’s covered in blood, and Lara says she won’t speak to us or to anybody else until she sees you or Marcone in person.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> C'mon, a threatened little girl with Harry's eyes? It's like the world's most perfect Marcone-bait. You *know* there's no way he would ever, ever let that go. 
> 
> Theme song for this chapter: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4b6GZzHErSg


	20. Chapter 19

**Part Four: Wednesday (Odin’s day) and Thursday (Thor’s day)**

**_Philia_** (φιλία _philía_ ) refers to dispassionate virtuous love. It includes loyalty to friends, family, and community, and requires virtue, equality, and familiarity. It is sometimes translated as "love of the mind." It can also encompass friendships of utility, where each party relies on the other for satisfaction of a mutual need.

_O tell me, tell me, Tam Lin," she says,_   
_"For's sake that died on tree,_   
_If eer ye was in holy chapel,_   
_Or christendom did see?"_

We found Molly down at the gates, surrounded by a group of about ten or so Raith minions standing with nervous looks on their faces and guns pointed faux-casually in her general direction. She was, in fact, covered in blood, and I noticed with no small amount of worry that the vast majority of it seemed to be her own.

“Molly! Stars, Molly, are you okay? What happened? Where have you been?”

She didn’t answer; she didn’t look like she’d even heard me, and my stomach gave another lurch at the unnatural emptiness lurking behind her eyes.

“Brought you prezzies,” she said, smiling fixedly at Marcone, and lobbed a foot-square block of ice straight at his head.

He just barely managed to drop the gun and get his hands up in time to catch it, and when he did, I boggled: trapped inside, motionless in a square ice-box of frozen air, drifted nearly a dozen dewdrop faeries. _My_ dewdrop faeries.

“There’s more where that came from.” Her voice sounded exhausted, under the thin veneer of bravado; she was, I noticed, still hovering a good three inches or so above the pavement. “I hunted down and locked up every one that could tell the mad Queen about Lea. Even Toot-toot. All the whispers are quiet.”

I crept closer and put a careful hand up against the blue-lit ice. I felt guilty for asking, but-

“They’re not hurt, are they?”

Molly’s eyes softened, going clearer and sharper as she fixed on me. “No, Harry. They’re all absolutely fine.”

“Neat work,” Marcone had apparently come to a decision; he hefted the cube in one hand, then dropped it carelessly down on the ground again. “However, since this was obviously the work of Winter magic, I fail to see how it is meant to resolve my security problem. Even if the pixies don’t tell the Queen what I’ve got planned for Dresden, surely the Leanansidhe or whoever else froze them will-”

“I did it.” Molly put her chin up at our incredulous looks, drawing herself up to her full height until she could stare Marcone in the eye. “The Leanansidhe didn’t give me power to find my Harry. She gave me as much power as I needed to ‘wrest Harry from you.’ Until the clocks chime midnight, until he’s not yours anymore, I have discretion to use her power in whatever way I choose. I’ve got power. Power that M- the Winter Queen won’t see coming. I have the oath of the Leanansidhe that she won't tell Winter. And I brought you tribute. I- I’m good at illusions. I’m good at memory charms, and mental magic, and I- I-” her voice got higher, the dead blankness in her eyes starting to crumble as she became more frantic. “Please, _please_ , I have to help, you have to let me save him-”

I could see Marcone blink once with surprise, his expression turning cold and calculating. You could practically see him crunching the numbers. I stepped forward quickly to put a stop to that.

“Of _course_ you can help, Molly. You don't have to ask, we'd be glad to have you.”

All the air whooshed out of her, expression going fuzzy-edged again with exhaustion.

“Good. Oh, good, oh thank God.” She looked – not relieved, not exactly, and certainly not sane, but some of the crazy-frantic-terrified had leaked away from her eyes. “I have to save you, Harry. You have to let me save you. It’s Tam Lin, right? You need to find your true love. So you have to say yes, Harry, you need me for the Tam Lin rescue, I’m your only hope-”

“We’ve already got more than enough unsuitable candidates for him to have sex with, thanks,” said Marcone dryly.

“No!” Molly squeaked, turning bright red. “N-not _that_ , not- not the love thing, I know you don’t- no! No, I have to save him because I’ve got the Jedi mind tricks, you-have-not-seen-these-droids. When the Hunt comes I can make Harry forget his True Love.” She took a deep breath, doing that wizard-trick I taught her – how to look someone in the face, without looking them in the eye. “I fooled his Queen once. I can do it again.”

“Oh, Molly,” I felt my heart sinking, the air turning to lead in my lungs.

The last time Molly had fooled Mab, she’d been helping me to kill myself.

Even if the idea had occurred to me, I would _never_ have asked Molly to do this. I couldn’t have. Not after the emotional trauma I’d already caused her two years ago by making her complicit in my death; not after last year, when she carried my ghost into a psychic battle against the Corpsetaker only to believe for the next month afterward that I’d died again protecting her. If it were up to me, I would never ask Molly to wipe another memory, to look into another mind. Especially not when…

“Molly, it’s not going to work.”

Her face wavered.

“Oh, I- I’ve kept up my mental magic, Harry, I practiced, I wouldn’t let you down but I–understand if- understand if you don’t trust me. But even if you don’t let me, you have to let _somebody_ , you can’t go back to your Queen again, not with the- the whoever-you-love-”

“No!” I interrupted quickly, “No, Molly, that’s not it – _Stars_ , you’re not _interfering_ , you- of course I trust you. I trust you with _anything_ , grasshopper, I’m sure you practiced, I just-” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “The White Court can feed on me. I- it looks like we weren’t really in love.”

“Oh.”

Molly’s face went white, then still, as she stared back at me, eyes dancing back and forth to my face and away again. Slowly, she hovered down ungracefully to the ground, staggering a little on her wounded leg before sliding down to collapse into sitting down.

“Oh. Oh, Harry-”

Oh stars, she was crying. I crouched down and reached out to hug her, but she flinched away, eyes squeezed shut.

“I’m sorry grasshopper. I’m so sorry, it was a wonderful plan, okay? It was amazing, really, it’s brilliant, it- How did you think of it, anyway?” I asked, in an effort to distract her.

“I, personally, would rather know how she found us,” Marcone murmured behind me. “If our location has been compromised once, it could easily be discovered again.”

Molly’s eyes flew open, and I was rewarded with a crazy-eyes grin, lighting up her face despite the tears.

“Oh! That was easy. Did you know Marcone keeps a thaumaturgical scale model of Chicago in his office?”

My mouth dropped open. I stood up.

“ _What?!_ ”

“I know. Very Lex Luthor, right?”

“I-” I shut my mouth with a snap and rounded on Marcone. “You looted my apartment!?”

“…Wait, that’s _yours_?” Molly blinked.

“You weren’t exactly using it at the time,” Marcone pointed out. 

“Yeah. Because I was _dead_! Hells _bells_ , the building was supposed to be burned to the ground – what, did you personally sift through the ashes and reconstruct everything you found from scratch?”

“Investigating, remember?” He reminded me defensively. His face had gone all annoyed and embarrassed. "And your basement was actually in remarkably good condition-"

“ _Investigating_ doesn’t mean _stealing my stuff and taking it with you_ -”

“Lex Luthor, Smallville edition,” Molly muttered.

I glowered at Marcone.

“I kept that model city locked up in my lab because it was _dangerous_. Do you have any idea what a tool like that could do if it fell into the wrong hands? And you just left it right out in the open-”

“Where any old magical arsonist could come along and find it,” Molly said loudly, pushing herself up off the ground. “He even marked all his properties _really clearly_ on it in blue paint. For somebody who normally lives and breathes the Evil Overlord list, that was impressively dumb.”

Marcone and I stopped and turned to stare at her.

“Oh _grasshopper_ ,” I breathed, “that’s _brilliant_.”

“Harry,” said Marcone in a somewhat admiring tone, “your apprentice takes after you to a remarkable degree.”

“Wow,” said Thomas, staring, “all three of you are completely bugfuck insane.”

“Hey.” I scowled.

Thomas raised an eyebrow at me.

“Harry. You made a fetish model of the city in your evil basement lab, you get 90% of your sex advice from a talking skull, and you inspired your apprentice to burn down half of Chicago as a symbolic gesture of her unrequited love. I could go on, but I’m not really sure you want me to.”

“Er.” I glanced over at Molly, mentally cringing at the ‘unrequited love,’ but she just shrugged, looking unconcerned.

“I spent the last twenty-eight months living on the streets, wearing strips of my dead tutor’s old clothing, and slaughtering Formor for therapy. I believe what doesn’t kill me only makes me stranger. I don’t get to judge anybody else’s crazy anymore.”

“In any case, if you hadn’t already driven my fire insurance premiums quite so ridiculously high over the past ten years, I would be less inclined to forgive Miss Carpenter her wanton destruction,” Marcone said dryly. “As matters stand, however, I think I can be prevailed upon to let the matter rest, now that I have been offered some measure of compensation.” He hefted the dewdrop faerie cube up again with a look of deep satisfaction.

“Sorry it took so long,” Molly shrugged. Her eyes had gone vague again; when I looked over at her, she twisted her hands together and shuffled a little. “Too little life left in your old duster, all you are is dust on the wind, and all that jazz. Mr. Polka said I shouldn’t bother trying, that it’d be faster to just Batman the police scanners and follow the explosions, but, well…” she spread out her hands, shrugging expressively.

“Mr. Polka? You’ve seen Butters? Is he- is Karrin okay?”

“Everyone’s okay,” Molly said, voice tight. I noticed her face had fallen slightly when I mentioned Karrin, and felt my own heart sinking along with it as I remembered all over again – Karrin didn’t love me. Or I didn’t love her, not properly. I’d put my friends in danger, I’d broken Molly’s heart all over again, and it was all to no purpose. “They’re all fine, I found them and stuck them under a Mass Invisiblity. None of them even knew I was there.”

I frowned. That was worrying.

“Why didn’t you want to stay with the others, Molly? Why didn’t you talk to them?”

My question made her smile, a wide half-tragic half-mocking grimace of a grin.

“Because I've got MAJOR PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS, and friendship and allegiance are emotions for dipshits like humans and trolls. Who else was gonna come save you?”

…Oh, yeah. Right. In addition to breaking Molly’s heart and dragging her through six kinds of hell over the last two years, I’d also driven my apprentice insane.

I forced myself to smile back at her, and tried once again, as I had so many times, not to remember what Molly had looked like before Chichen Itza, the happy, healthy, innocent girl I’d so totally destroyed.

“I can take you back to see them, if you want, boss,” she offered. “All of them. I still remember where they are.” She was beaming up at me, plainly searching for approval. Even after everything she’d already done for me, after she’d _sold her firstborn child,_ Molly was still willing, still _eager_ to put her neck on the line to help.

“That would be great, Molly,” I said, giving her the biggest grin I could muster. “Thanks.”

She beamed back at me, turned around, and reached up to open a Way.

 

 

 

We staggered into the parking lot of St Mary of the Angel’s just as the clock struck midnight.

“One night and one day left,” Marcone muttered beside me, eyes stuck on his watch. I ignored him, my eyes caught by the wonderful, welcome silhouette of familiar figures standing backlit against the golden stained-glass entrance.

“Daniel? Georgia? _Charity_?”

“ _Molly_ ,” said Charity, and charged past me to envelop her daughter in a giant hug.

“Harry!”

“Harry!”

“HEY, EVERYBODY, HARRY’S HERE!”

“Oh my God, what happened to your neck-”

Andi came tumbling out at the sound of Daniel’s yell, followed by Butters, and behind them I could see Mort’s face in the doorway, crowded in beside Annie, Marci, Billy, Father Forthill-

“Wow,” I said, gaping past them around into the church interior. “Is _everyone_ hiding out here?”

“I put out the word on #OccultChicago as soon as I heard Murphy made it here safely,” Butters explained, shrugging. “Then they all just kind of showed up. I guess we all figured the best place to be during a siege was with each other.”

“That wasn't according to the plan,” said Marcone, frowning slightly.

“Thomas!” Murphy’s voice broke in, as she pushed past huddles of Carpenters out into the entrance. “Thank God, we were wondering where- Harry?” She gaped at me. “ _Molly?!_ ”

“Yes, yes, yes, all the lost lambs have been found, everyone is very surprised, can we get inside now, please?” Marcone said impatiently, putting one hand in the small of my back to steer me over the threshold and into the open church hall. “I would prefer Mr. Dresden safely inside whatever rudimentary defenses this place might offer-”

“Da, inside is best,” boomed a familiar Russian accent. “The good father has been telling me all about how his so-called God will give protection from the angry fairies.”

“ _Sanya_?” I stopped and blinked at him. So, beside me, did Marcone. The last I’d heard, the one and (currently) only Knight of the Cross had been in Siberia, knee-deep in Denarian intrigues, and not likely to move from there anytime soon.  “I thought you were away on business?”

“I have cut my business short,” he grinned, demonstrating the “cut” part literally. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that his unsheathed broadsword came slicing down two inches in front of Marcone’s nose. 

He didn’t flinch, but I felt his hand twitch once against the small of my back.

“ _I_ thought that business was of some delicacy and importance,” Marcone glared, voice turning all glittery and menace-like.

“And I called in reinforcements anyway,” said Murphy sharply, stepping up into our little circle and lifting, I saw with a shock, the second of the holy swords – Fidelaccius. _The_ sword.

The sword for which Murphy was the destined, the rightful bearer.

The sword that she had, for various reasons, refused to wield ever since it had come into her possession, except during the battle at Chichen Itza when we rode out to save Maggie.

She saw where I was looking and met my gaze, lifting her chin and the naked sword defiantly.

“We need all the help we can get.”

“Indeed we do,” Marcone answered, taking a step closer and running his eyes appreciatively over the sword. “Sir Sanya- _Sirs_ Sanya and Karrin, I cannot think of any help that could possibly be more welcome.”

Murphy’s eyes narrowed, darting between my face and my neck and Marcone’s hand on my back, but before she could say anything, we were interrupted by Thomas, who shoved furiously between us and out into the middle of the room to loom over Murphy.

“I can think of one thing that’d be pretty damn welcome,” he snapped, glaring down at her. “What about somebody who _actually_ loves Harry?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene took forever to write, partly because of the twenty-something crossover references involved. Brownie points to anybody who spots one! :)


	21. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Theme song for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfBuchQXur4
> 
> NOW REVISED to allow for added plot! :)

_Out then spake an auld grey knight,_   
_Lay oer the castle wa,_   
_And says, Alas, fair Janet, for thee,_   
_But we'll be blamed a'._

Murphy took a slow step forward, blinking at Thomas.

“I- _excuse_ me? What do you mean, ‘someone who actually loves Harry’?”

Thomas’s jaw set. “I mean what I said. You aren’t in love with him. You _knew_ you weren’t in love with him, you knew this was never going to work-”

Michael came charging up out of one of the corridors, followed by Father Forthill and Billy Borden. “What’s everybody yelling abou- Harry? _Molly?_ ” He hurried straight past Thomas to envelop his daughter in an enormous hug.

“Harry picked me,” Murphy said, still staring at Thomas and looking bewildered. “Harry agreed, I agreed, _you_ even agreed I’d be the one to save him. Thomas, I don’t understand where this is coming from-”

“Michael, Maggie’s been taken to the ER wing of Northwestern Memorial hospital,” I interrupted, stepping forward. “Marcone left her with Gard and a bunch of Einherjaren. I tried calling you, but I think Molly’s veil’s been messing with the phones-”

“I’ll leave immediately,” Michael assured me, releasing Molly and limping hastily across to grab his jacket and car keys.

Butters raised an eyebrow at me, then at Michael.

“Einherjaren? Really? I thought we were all still pretending you-know-who didn’t exist around Marcone-”

“I’m afraid Mr. Raith is correct,” Marcone told Murphy, taking a step forward to stand beside me. “As it stands, the bond between the two of you is insufficient for the ritual’s requirements.”

Murphy’s eyes were dancing back and forth from me to Marcone to Thomas. Slowly, her hand closed around the hilt of her sword.

“Harry, what happened? What does Thomas mean, I don’t love you?”

“I-” I opened my mouth, then closed it again. “Thomas-” No. “We, um-” No. “Maggie-”

Marcone glanced at my face and took a step up to stand in front of me, keeping his eyes on Murphy’s and his voice calm.

“Mr. Dresden and I found Ms. Manzano and Mr. Raith at the Raith estate, besieged by a number of Winter Hounds and Denarians. Mr. Raith fed from Mr. Dresden shortly after the ensuing battle. It would appear that whatever bond exists between the two of you, it does not have the characteristics of true love, as defined by White Court magic.”

Murphy turned to stare at me, and I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes fixed carefully away from hers. I doubted if she’d want to risk a soulgaze right now.

“… I’m sorry.” Her voice had gone very, very, very quiet. “Mr. Raith _what_?”

Thomas winced, taking a step back, shoulders hunching defensively. “Look, it was an accident, I was out of my mind-”

“You _fed_ off him?! You- how _could_ you-”

“It wasn’t like that!” I interrupted hastily, taking a step forward as I saw Murphy’s hand clenching over her sword hilt. “Karrin, seriously, it’s okay-”

“It’s not,” said Thomas, sounding raw and guilty.

“It’s- Thomas, shut up, you’re making things worse. It wasn’t like that, okay, Karrin, he was out of his mind, he would’ve eaten anything that came near him-”

“ _That doesn’t excuse_ -”

“And he stopped!” I snapped, glaring at her. “He was _dying_ , Murphy, and he stopped, and he didn’t mean to-”

“And that’s supposed to make this somehow _okay_? You- God, Thomas, you’re his own brothe-”

“MURPHY!” Thomas and I yelled nearly simultaneously, drowning her out. She was so angry she was shaking, mouth working soundlessly; I thought for a second she was going to keep talking anyway, but she dragged her eyes back over to Marcone with obvious reluctance, and clenched her jaw shut.

“I do not understand,” interrupted Sanya, who’d come up to stand by Charity’s left side, flanking Molly. Molly was staring at Thomas as if she’d never seen him before. “What is so upsetting about the Raith boy eating Harry? Harry is not hurt. There are not even bite marks.”

“It means Murphy isn’t in love with Harry,” Billy explained, looking grim. “So that rescue we were telling you about? It isn’t going to work.”

“It means a hell of a lot more than-” Murphy started hotly, before Thomas cut her off with a snarl.

“Shut _up!_ ”

She glared back at him.

“No, you know what? No. I’ve put up with this from Harry for years, I don’t need to put up with it from you too. This need-to-know secrecy bullshit is going to get somebody killed-”

“ _Telling_ secrets could get Harry killed,” Thomas snarled. He was stalking forward, crowding Karrin back against the first row of pews, and his eyes were starting to edge pale-white again over their normal dark grey. He looked viciously angry.

“Thomas,” I said, loudly, “it’s okay. Nothing happened, not really, I- You couldn’t help it. You can’t help it. It’s okay.”

Thomas didn’t look like he’d even heard me.

“Not all secrets make things better when they’re brought to light,” he insisted, glowering down from where he towered over Murphy. “Not all secrets are good. Or do you think talking about my secrets is supposed to somehow _help_ Harry?”  His eyes were flickering on and off of the edge of white-silver. Murphy let go of her sword to put a hand on her gun, and Marcone stepped forward hastily to put himself in front of me, face carefully blank.  “You think I should discuss my _feelings_? Maybe it’d help if I shared what it _feels_ like to want to fuck the life out of any adult who looks at me. Out of old women, teenagers, anyone with a hint of sexual desire. Maybe I should tell you all how right this minute, I’m thinking about eating every damn soul in this room, even my-” he cut himself off sharply. “Even Harry.”

All around the church hall, faces were going white; Molly had gone all white and sick-looking, her eyes stuck on Thomas.

“What Harry’s not telling you _all_ ,” Thomas snapped, stepping back to sweep a scathing look over the roomful of shocked people, “is that he was only anywhere near me in the first place because he stopped my sister using me as a weapon to rape and murder my own father. So thanks for that, Harry, and let’s never have this discussion fucking ever again.”

Everyone was so quiet I could hear Andi’s and Marci’s low, shaky gasps from across the room; hear Murphy hiss through her teeth as she lowered one hand from her sword hilt.

“Jesus, Thomas-”

“Are we done here?” he demanded, not bothering to look over at Murphy. “Because my family's issues are really not what matters now. What _matters_ is that Harry has no one to save him. What _matters_ is that we failed – that _you_ failed – and now, not only can’t we save him, tomorrow morning the Winter Queen is going to find out about all of this and come kill us all for trying. She’ll torture Harry.”

From the way he said it, my punishment was clearly the worst part of this scenario.

I strongly disagreed.

I knew punishment. Hell’s bells, as often as I disobeyed orders, punishment and me were old friends by now. I knew I’d be able to live with it. I’d _have_ to live with it; Mab was pretty adamant about keeping me alive.

But I didn’t think I’d be able to live without the others. Thomas. Molly. _Karrin_.

Marcone let go of my arm to take another step forward, face blank.

“Mr. Raith is correct. We need to focus on solutions. Clearly, the next logical step is to determine if it’s possible to find a suitable replacement-”

“Excuse me?”

Marcone frowned. “It is…regrettable that you were unsuitable as a candidate, Ms. Murphy, but unpalatable though the thought might be, the only possible way to free Mr. Dresden now is to find somebody with whom he does share a sufficient bond.”

“You’re seriously going to make him go through all of this all over again,” said Murphy, staring up at Marcone in disbelief. “As if just- just picking a different person is supposed to fix the problem here. You’re just going to make him-”

“I never _made_ him do anything,” Marcone pointed out, voice cold. “He agreed to this. Of your own free will, _both_ of you agreed to this-”

“Harry. Has. Been. _Raped_ ,” Murphy snarled, rounding on Marcone with eyes as cold and hard as Winter.  “Did either of you even think about that? Did you have any idea what y- what _we_ were doing to him, when you decided to start this fucking rescue? Did you even _care_?” Her voice wobbled, exhaustion seeping into the haggard lines around her eyes. “Do know what a post-traumatic flashback looks like? Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch- to see that happening in front of you, and know you’re the one who caused it, that you- you-”

Thomas’s face had gone blank and bleak and still.

Marcone frowned.

“Regardless, _somebody_ needs to complete the ritual, and since your bond with Mr. Dresden is apparently insufficient, we must find someone else who cares about him sufficiently-”

“Cares about him? _Cares_ about him? I gave up my _job_ for Harry!” Murphy’s voice had risen about an octave, bright blue eyes blazing. “I gave up my body. What the hell right do you have to tell me I don’t love him _enough_ -” Her voice broke. “Fuck you, Thomas. Fuck Marcone, and fuck you. You could at least have the guts to call all this what it really is: sex under duress.”

Sex under- it felt like I stood there, frozen in shock and disbelief. I- it hadn’t been rape. Karrin had loved me. She had offered, she had- she had said yes-

She interrupted my train of thought by shaking her head.

“ _Both_ of us under duress. Be honest, Harry, this wasn’t ever something you would have chosen for yourself.”

“Of course it was, Murp- _Karrin._ Karrin, of course it was, I love you.”

She stared back at me wearily, eyes dull.

“Harry, if it weren’t for this ritual, would you ever have agreed to sleep with me? Would you ever even have _asked_?”

I couldn’t answer. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t speak; my throat felt hoarse with frost. _Sex under duress._ But I wasn’t- I wasn’t coercing her. She’d said she loved me. And I’d thought – I’d been convinced, until Thomas’s magic had bit into my skin, that I’d loved her. I _did_ love her, I did-

“Yeah,” said Murphy, apparently taking my silence for an answer. “That’s what I figured. It has to be an act of love that frees you, and that- what we did wasn’t love. Not _only_ love.”

“So, what are you saying?” Marci asked, frowning, “that even if we find Harry’s true love, the ritual won’t save him? That we should all just stop trying?”

“Of course not,” Marcone snapped. I tore my gaze away from Murphy to blink at him

“No,” I said, slowly, watching the way the dim church lights flickered in his eyes, “no, actually, Marci’s got a point. That’s probably the best thing we can do right now.”

“No,” snapped Marcone, flatly, glaring back at me. “Unacceptable. I _will_ see you freed.”

“What I _meant_ ,” said Murphy loudly, “is that maybe _Harry_ should be the one to decide what he wants. Considering this is supposedly his true love we’re discussing.”

I scoffed. “What I _want_? I want the last forty-eight hours to never have happened. I want a happy, safe, monster-free life for my daughter. I want Susan back. I want world peace and hot showers and a lifetime of free beer at Mac’s, but since I’m not going to _get_ what I want, I’ll settle for you all to stop trying to save me. I told you from the beginning this wouldn’t work, I _told_ you it was suicidal, and you wouldn’t listen. But now at least Molly’s managed to buy you all a way out of this by wiping my memory, and it would be stupid not to take it. At least this way, when I return to Mab tomorrow night and she finds out what we were all trying to do, Marcone and I will be the only ones to suffer.”

Behind me, somebody snorted.

I turned, surprised, to see Georgia Spocking an eyebrow back at me.

“Cute, Harry. Real cute. It’s adorable, actually, how you think any of us would back out now.”

“We signed up with the mafia for you, Harry.” Billy grinned. “That really isn’t the kind of thing you do halfway. I hear they make you sleep with the fishes if you try to quit.”

“I lost you twice already, boss.” Molly said, quietly, from underneath her mother’s arm.  “You were the one who told me three’s the magic number.”

“You _cannot_ get any more involved in this,” I argued, glaring at them. “If we call the Hunt down, if Mab finds out, you’re all going to be slaughtered, and I think everyone here knows that whole true-love-thing isn’t going to work out for me.”

Butters nervously cleared his throat.

“Harry. Look at it this way. At this point, even if it doesn’t work, what have you got left to lose?”

I looked back over at him, at Murphy and Thomas and all the wolves and Carpenters and Father Forthill and Mort and Abby, and tried to swallow against the lump in my throat.

“I could lose you guys.”

The scowl on Thomas’s face melted away, replaced with a soft smile, and Murphy rolled her eyes at me.

“You could lose us any time, Harry. To sickness, fighting, old age…Hell,” she summoned a wavery approximation of a smile, “the way things are going, chances are pretty good we’ll all be dead in a few more months regardless.”

I blinked at her.

“What do you mean?” That hadn’t…that hadn’t sounded like sarcasm. “I thought you guys were, you know, holding down the fort around here these days. Buffying it up.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a lot less stake-and-dust-‘em and a lot more ‘from-beneath-you-it-devours’,” said Butters grimly. “Since you died, well…You know how city-destroying, earth-threatening apocalypses tended to just kind of _find_ you all the time? About once every couple of years or so?” I nodded ruefully. I remembered. “Well, lately, they’ve been finding us pretty much every other week.”

I looked around and was genuinely surprised, and increasingly horrified, by the looks of weary assent on my friends’ faces. None of them were noticeably desperate – unlike Marcone, they all looked merely tired, not half-dead with exhaustion. But taken all together – the way Marci kept weight off one of her legs, the scars gracing Charity’s wrists and Michael’s biceps, the new lines written across Billy and Georgia’s fresh young faces – the picture was damning.

This wasn’t just had-a-bad-night, chased-by-faeries tired. This was long-term tired, the kind that wore away at you from the inside. The kind that was dangerous.

How _could_ I have missed this?  

“We’ve been winning,” said Billy. “Mostly. Or- well, honestly, Marcone’s been winning, and we’ve been picking up a lot of the slack. But I don’t think we can keep this up much longer. Unless something changes – something big – I think we’ve got maybe another year left in us, max.”

The calm, resigned honesty in Billy’s voice shocked me speechless.

How could I possibly not have noticed this? Whenever I visited, everyone had always talked as if things were more or less normal, like they’d been before I died. They’d given me anecdotes about recent fights, a couple of skirmishes, new tricks they’d found to help with patrolling – but nothing to indicate the level of exhaustion I could see in them now that I was looking for it. Sure, _I’d_ been fighting more monsters since becoming Winter Knight: bigger and badder and generally more capable monsters than I’d ever seen before. But I worked for Mab now, and her territory covered a lot more ground than Chicago. I assumed there’d been more of them because I was moving up in the world; moving on into the big leagues.

If there were suddenly more monsters _in_ the world…

“ ‘Winning’ is, I think, a rather charitable way to put it, Mr. Borden,” Marcone murmured. “Chicago needs you, Harry.”

“ _We_ need you,” Georgia added, voice soft.

It occurred to me for the first time that, just as I’d been keeping the worst of my Faerieland exploits from them – the innocents I’d put to death, the gory performances I was forced to make of some kills, the way Maeve liked to play with me – they had been keeping the worst of their lives hidden from me as well. Like Molly’s training with Lea, like Thomas’s family, like whatever it was that had happened to put that permanent look of defeat hovering in the back of Marcone’s eyes.

What had been _happening_ in Chicago while I was away?

“Yeah,” said Marci, summoning up a grin– and now that I was looking for it, I could see the hope, the honest joy missing from her smile. “Besides, after that thing with the tentacles last August, taking on the Winter Court should be a piece of cake.” Marcone and Murphy grimaced simultaneously at the word ‘tentacles’.

My chest squeezed. Marci said ‘last August’ the same way I thought ‘Uruguay’, the same way I thought ‘Ethiopia’ or ‘Puerto Rico’ or 'August'. Like just another episode in a never-ending string of horrors. I didn't want her to think that way. I didn't want any of them to have to think that way.

“We still have a day,” offered Butters. “No one has to give up hope yet. We could still find someone else, maybe, Harry’s still got time-”

“Not enough time for Harry to get to know a total stranger,” argued Thomas. Every slumped line of his body radiated defeat. “Not enough time for him to fall in love again.”

“Why not?”

 “…Uh,” Thomas stared at Marcone. So, I think, did everyone else. “You _do_ know what love is, right? As in, you’ve actually experienced it? You don’t just _fall in love_ with people you barely know – not in real life, anyway. You do know that, right? Love at first sight doesn’t exist.”

“For most people, no. But Harry’s a wizard.”

Marcone’s tone was so casual, and so very much at odds with the sudden tension in his shoulders, that it took me a second to figure out what he’d actually _said_. When I did, I blinked at him in outright confusion, but he just stared back at me, green eyes inscrutable-

Oh. _Oh_.

“Soulgazes don’t work like that,” I told him wearily. I hadn’t loved Susan at first soulgaze, after all. I’d loved – or thought I’d loved – Elaine, but I’d also been fifteen and exceptionally stupid. “Besides, even if they did, what would I do, go drive around picking up random strangers off the street? Hell's bells, the chances against finding somebody that way must be a million to one…”

“Besides,” Billy added, “the faeries would hear about it and follow him back here and kill us all. You might as well put an ad up on Ebay.”

“What- what if it wasn’t a stranger?” Molly stammered. “Y- maybe, with someone you, you already knew, you could- could learn see them differently, maybe, twenty-four hours isn’t too long for that, you could- you could learn to love them-”

Something twinged somewhere in the middle-left of my chest looking back at her. The shivering, poorly-concealed hope in her eyes was painful to look at.

God, I wanted to give my apprentice a hug.

“Grasshopper, I- I don’t think it works that way either.”

Marcone frowned. “The available options-”

“The options are _nothing_ , okay!? Do you hear what I’m saying? There are no options left!” Thomas rounded on Marcone, glaring. “It’s got to be somebody Harry’s willing to have sex with. Somebody who needs him, somebody who loves him, and somebody he loves back. Can _you_ see anyone in this room who fits that bill?”

Murphy crossed her arms across her chest and raised an eyebrow. Thomas and Marcone scowled at each other. Molly, in the corner, shrank back away from my gaze against her mother’s shoulder, and I ached a little inside.

“Maybe we could still use Murphy?” Marci babbled, voice artificially bright. “I mean, th- the skull said pregnancy is a powerful bond. Maybe that could be enough, even without the true love? It could still work.”

I let out a long, slow breath of air.

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Murphy looked over at Bob.

“ _Could_ it be enough?”

“Weeell, in the immortal words of Meatloaf: two out of three ain’t bad. You want him, you love him, you just don’t need him. And you _are_ pregnant. Really, I’m not the expert on human emotion here. Hers and Harry’s auras are pretty well blended, but then so are Harry and the jailbait apprentice, or Harry and Mr. White Court there. I dunno. Only one way to tell, and that involves Hunts and Horses. I’d say you’ve got a good fighting chance.”

“This wasn’t supposed to be a _good fighting chance_ , this was supposed to be a sure thing!” Thomas snarled, slamming a fist into the wall.

“ _Any_ chance is worth it,” Andi said firmly, “as long as it gets Harry free.”

Molly grinned across at me, eyes shining. “We’re going to do it. I _know_ we can do it. Me and you and my Vulcan mind-meld, we’re going to bring Harry home.”

She sounded like she honestly believed it. I looked across the room at the hope shining out of her warm, brown young eyes…

…And a jolt of white-hot agony shot from my left hand all the way up through my spine.

It _hurt_.

I don't use that word lightly, these days. But this was worse than anything Mab or Maeve or Lea had ever done to me, worse than Bianca’s Reds, worse than Justin. It felt like a hand had reached down deep inside of me, taken hold of half my soul, and started tearing it to pieces by way of electrocuting every cell in my body. My mind went white, all individual sensation drowned out by the pain, until I couldn't tell my mind from my lungs from my _heart_ anymore-

Under the circumstances, I took the only sensible course of action available, and passed the fuck out.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: unwanted medical attention, unhealthily high pain tolerances, PTSD, discussion of past rape, and general warnings for both Harry's whacked view of consent issues and his herculean Repression of Trauma.

_My right hand will be gloved, lady,_  
 _My left hand will be bare,_  
…

_And thae's the takens I gie thee,  
Nae doubt I will be there._

I blinked slowly awake to the familiar sight of John Marcone’s green eyes staring down into mine.

“He’s awake!” Billy’s voice yelped happily from somewhere above me, followed by the sound of running feet and the slam of a door as he raced off, presumably to spread the good news. Marcone smiled.

“Ah, Harry. Conscious at last. How are you feeling?”

Pain, was how I was feeling. Lots, and lots, and lots of pain. And more than a little confusion.

Most of the pain seemed to be centered around my pounding headache, which was gradually dying down as I swam muzzily back into consciousness, and my chest and shoulder, where I could feel wet blood seeping out over bare skin. My left hand also felt like someone had taken a small welding torch to it, and all of my muscles ached. All around me floated the stench of blood and antiseptic.

Worst of all, I seemed to be lying with my head in Marcone’s lap, one of his hands resting gently in my hair, and he was smirking down at me like he’d just won elections for Mayor.

“What happened?”

Instead of answering, he reached out to carefully lift my left hand and pull it into my line of vision. I started to yank it irritably away from him, but was stopped, shocked, by the sight of my own skin: there was a livid, open red burn branded into the palm of my left hand, buried in the midst of mostly-healthy scar tissue, in the shape of a strange hourglass runic symbol vaguely reminiscent of spider.

 _Lasciel’s_ symbol.

I froze, suddenly hyper-aware of the overwhelming emptiness echoing inside my mind.

Marcone was very close and very warm and positively _radiating_ self-satisfied joy.

“Happy birthday, Harry.” 

I yanked my hand out of his to try to push myself upright, and almost immediately collapsed to the floor again, Marcone only barely managing to catch my head before it smacked against the flagstones. Stars and _stones_ , it felt like someone had been tapdancing on the inside of my ribs.

 “Let _go_ of me, you- _Hell’s bells_ , what did you do to me?”

“You carried the Denarius Lasciel’s shadow inside you,” boomed a deep Russian voice. I twisted my head up out of Marcone’s lap and managed to catch a glimpse, distorted by the blur of my throbbing headache, of Sanya crouched down by my feet, both hands wrapped casually around the handle of his unsheathed sword. “Now you do not anymore.”

“Honestly, Mr. Dresden,” Marcone murmured, moving the hand that had been cradling my head down to my shoulder and pushing me firmly back down against his legs. “I reconstructed your entire apartment complex down to the foundations. I went over every burned scrap of furniture you owned. Did you _really_ expect me to miss a buried strongbox?”

“You…” There were a lot – a _lot_ – of potential ends to that sentence, but before I could get any of them out, Butters materialized in my field of vision and stuck a penlight in my eyes.

Ah. So that was who’d been making all the very, very painful parts of my stomach hurt worse by poking at them.

“Ow!” I yelped, jerking back and head-butting Marcone in the knee. “ _Hexus_ -”

Gray roaring washed up over my hearing. Tiny black spots appeared in front of my eyes. Hastily, I stopped pulling on the well of power that I thought of as _my_ magic, and reached out for Winter instead, and Butters’s flashlight died in a shower of sparks.

I glared up at Marcone, ignoring Butter’s startled curses.

“Would you get your damned hands off me?”

“You need to hold your spine still,” Marcone said, which was not an apology. He also didn’t get his damned hands off me; I could feel them close and warm and rough against my skin, sending confusing signals dancing shockily down my nerves and across the sputtering field of my magic. “Mr. Butters hasn’t yet been able to determine the extent of the damage.”

“We were all wery concerned,” Sanya agreed, his voice seemingly unconcerned by the death of Butters’s flashlight. “Not often does the separation of coin from host go so smoothly.”

“I already told you, his spine looks okay,” Butters announced, with another few painful jabs into my chest. “But he’s taken serious damage to his sternum, shoulder, and abdomen, and his left hand’s a real piece of work. As far as I can tell, Harry, it’s like someone managed to give you some kind of time-lapse bullet wounds that have already partway healed – and a good thing, too, or you’d have ruptured at least three major organs. As it is, you’ve lost a worrying amount of blood. I’m going to have to suture these wounds closed.”

“This isn’t going to happen when I’m freed from Mab, is it?” I panted, trying to wrench my bare shoulder out of Marcone’s grasp and failing. “Because it would really, _really_ suck to get free of Winter just to find myself paralyzed from the neck down. Not to mention getting back the other two-thirds of these bullet wounds. And get your hand out of my hair.”

Marcone moved his right hand down to rest against the side of my face instead, sending a trail of shivers down my neck, and treated me to another blindingly self-satisfied smile.

“I doubt it. All the available research would seem to indicate otherwise. You _do_ realize, don’t you, that this would all be much less painful if you would just lie still? Mr. Butters needs to work.”

In response, I lowered the temperature across the skin of my upper body by about sixty degrees, forcing his hands to twitch away and making Butters stab me accidentally in the leg with a needle.

“You can’t have ‘disposed’ of my coin,” I announced, focusing on scowling up into Marcone’s eyes as a way to distract myself from the serious pain going on everywhere below my neck. “The coins can’t _be_ destroyed. Michael told me that to renounce it I’d have to renounce my magic.”

“I didn’t destroy the coin; I disposed of it. As I’m sure you’re aware, I maintain very strict codes of conduct throughout my business. Leaving my employment can be a rather…violent process for those who fail to maintain them. Several of my former employees were scheduled to be…let go tonight, so I told my people to offer your coin around to the men in question. Clearly, one of them must have accepted.”

It was with very, very great difficulty that I remembered Butters long enough to stop myself from setting Marcone on fire.

“You gave _Lasciel’s coin_ to one of your thugs?!”

“An ex-employee.”

I glared up at him, thinking balefully of burning buildings, and winced as another stitch was yanked into place somewhere near my navel.

“Demonic mobsters, John. Demonic mobsters, running loose in my city.”

Marcone scoffed.

“I seriously doubt any jumped-up ex-employee of mine could ever have done half as much damage with that coin as you could. And it’s _our_ city, Mr. Dresden.”

I snarled at him.

 “ _John_.”

He settled his hands a little more firmly to either side of my shoulders, and gave a long-suffering sigh.

“The man was told the coin would give him the strength he needed to fight off death. He wasn’t given the chance to _use_ that strength. And, as we have both had ample cause to discover,” his eyes flashed darkly down to where Butters was busily sewing my stomach closed, “bullets _do_ occasionally travel faster than magic.”

“You killed a man to get this coin out of Harry?”

Sanya didn’t sound very happy about this. Come to think of it, _I_ wasn’t particularly happy either.

Marcone raised an eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, would you rather I had left the Denarius as it was?”

“ _Yes_ ,” I spat, trying and failing once again to twitch away from his hand. “I don’t want you killing for me.”

“I don’t kill people _for you_ , Mr. Dresden,” Marcone snapped, looking briefly annoyed, and shoved at my shoulders. “Lie _still_.”

The temperature dropped another fifteen degrees or so around us. Butters, down by my ribs, broke off sewing hastily and gave me a terrified look.

It was a struggle to force the well of cold fire back down and under my skin so that Butters could keep stitiching; to force myself to stay obedient and quiet and quiescent.

Funny, how much angrier Marcone’s casual possessiveness was making me now.

Funny, that is, except that the thought made me I realize just how stupidly, blindly passive I'd been acting before.

I hadn’t been lying, back at Brighter Futures, when I'd told Marcone it was impossible to free me. I resented Mab, and I hated her, but I knew that I belonged to Winter, completely and irrevocably. I knew my place. I very _deliberately_ knew my place, because Mab could read my mind forward, backward, and sideways, and I didn't want to give her any excuse to go digging any deeper than she already had.

I'd been good. I'd been obedient. I'd buried my own detective instincts down so deep that even I had forgotten they ever existed. I'd swallowed my conscience, and my pride, and the furious anger inside me demanding that She should _pay_ for this, that She couldn't own me, that I wasn't _Hers_. I’d been careful not to learn too much or look too closely into Winter’s inner workings, never to investigate the limits of her power; I’d learned to respond with automatic deference to the _masterWinter **obey**_ feeling that denoted Maeve and Mab and whoever else Mab chose to tell me to listen to. I'd given her no reason whatsoever to question my thoughts.

And then John Marcone had come along and blown it all to hell.

He made me long for freedom in a way I hadn’t in years. Taking orders from John Marcone – familiar, human, green-eyed bastard John Marcone – was intolerable and infuriating in a way that was entirely different from taking them from Mab and entirely more difficult to ignore. I wanted to be _free_ of him.

Obeying my Winter master came easy.

Obeying John Marcone, unless I was making a serious effort to forget who we both were, came very, very hard.

And he just kept on fucking _reminding_ me.

Even worse, he didn't just make me want freedom; he made me think it might be possible. I _knew_ him, right down to his ruthless, unscrupulous, amoral bones, and I knew my friends, and right from the beginning back at Brighter Futures it had been far, far too easy to believe they might succeed at this.

And now, with his green eyes glowing down at me, brimful of confidence, with the siren freedom of _no coin no coin no coin_ singing its way through my veins...

I shuddered.

 _You belong to Winter_. _You belong to Mab. You are the Winter Knight, and nothing you can do will ever change tha-_

"OW! _"_

Sanya hovered into view again, frowning.

“You are a doctor and a drug lord, yes? Why does Harry not have painkillers yet?”

“I’m a mortician, not a doctor,” Butters muttered rebelliously from somewhere around my navel. “If everybody would stop being so stupid about secrecy, maybe he could see an _actual_ doctor, but as it is-”

“I’ll get Harry some painkillers as soon as one of you gets me access to a working telephone,” said Marcone, in a mild tone of voice that was probably meant to sound reasonable and really just made me want to set his hair on fire.

“Don’t call me Harry, scumba- OW!”

“There,” said Butters, jerking something painfully down near my left ribs, “that’s the lot.”

Marcone promptly moved out from under me, and I struggled to sit up again; this time, it worked. I realized uneasily that I'd been installed in one of the room-sized storage closets networking the lower levels of St. Mary’s church. It wasn’t the service basement, but it was uncomfortably close, and for a second or two the bare stone walls crossed wires with the Winter power howling beneath my skin, the warm candlelight melting into bloodstains and sending white noise dancing across my vision-

_‘Mine,’ Mab hissed as she bore down upon me, icy wind settling over and around me until all I saw was white, until all I could smell was the vampires dying around me and my hand on Susan’s skin the stone knife the blood Susan’s eyes Susan's hand holding mine as she looked up at me Susan Susan Susan Susa-_

The door in front of me slammed open, shocking me back to reality; Billy had finally managed to track down Murphy. I grinned in spite of the cold tremors trying to creep over my spine.

“Karrin!”

Billy rushed in to give Butters a one-armed hug and me a careful clap on the shoulders, but Murphy had stopped just inside the doorway.

“Well, _Baron_ Marcone? Am I allowed in yet?”

“Harry’s fine.”

“That isn’t what I asked,” she snapped. She was holding herself stiff, one hand against her sword belt, and her blue eyes were tight and guarded.

“Of course you can come in,” I said, pushing myself carefully up off the floor so I could move over to greet her. “Murphy? Karrin? Are you okay?”

She kept her eyes fixed on Marcone.

“I want to talk to Harry.”

Sanya, Billy, and Butters all scrambled for the door immediately, grabbing at weapons and medical equipment as they went, but Marcone pushed himself up slowly and paused at the door, a weirdly apprehensive expression crossing his face.

“Ms. Murphy. I would appreciate it if you would try to remember that your part in this rescue-”

“Out. _Now_.”

I waited until the door had closed behind him before moving over to stand in front of her. I was disconcerted to see that her hands were shaking, both fists clenched hard against her sides.

“Murph. _Karrin_. You’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

Her eyes fixed themselves on the bandages wrapped around my torso, and all the anger melted away, making her face go all soft and unhappy. Slowly, she sheathed her sword and took a step forward to put both hands on my bandaged chest, right over my heart.

“Karrin. Are you okay?”

“I-” she took a deep, shaky breath, and slowly leaned forward until her head rested against my shoulder. “I- _Jesus_ , Harry. I thought you were dying. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

I put my less-bloody arm around her, taking shameless advantage of the proximity to bury my face in her hair.

“Wasn’t exactly my idea, Murph. Gentleman Johnny apparently decided to get me a birthday gift.”

She flinched at the sound of Marcone’s name, and stepped abruptly away from me, her eyes flaring up with sudden fury.

“You told me Lasciel was gone _._ You said she was dead, Harry, you _lied_ to me. You _swore_ to me she wasn’t inside you anymore!”

Oh.

Oh, Stars and _stones_.

“I-” I closed my mouth, opened it, and tried again. “I thought she _was_ gone. I didn’t realize otherwise, not until yesterday-”

Until Marcone had put those wards up. Until Lash had walked back into my dreams – no, my nightmares – and shown me- shown me-

I shut my mouth hard.

“I- I’m sorry, Murphy. Really, I am. I just – there didn’t seem to be a good time.”

Her eyes danced over my face, but she didn't say anything. The tight unhappy look had come back into her eyes again. I shifted uncomfortably.

"What?"

“Harry, back there- did you mean it when you said you didn’t want us to free you?”

Yes.

 _No_.

Oh, hell's bells.

I _didn’t_ want her to free me. If someone _had_ to throw their life away by going up against Mab on my behalf, I would rather it be anyone _but_ her. But I didn’t quite know how to say that without coming off as a chauvinistic, chivalraic idiot. Or without insulting the sacrifices she'd made. As she herself said, she’d given up her job for me. She’d given up her body, her badge, her integrity. How can you tell someone, after that, that it's all been for nothing? That it’s all going to be wasted, that it’s been hopeless from the beginning?

I furiously squashed down the gleeful little Denarius-free voice in the back of my head trying to tell me otherwise. I couldn’t afford to believe it.

“Look, Karrin, I just- I don’t want you hurt.”

Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically see her bristle. _Shit_. That was the wrong way to phrase it.

“You don’t trust us to save you.”

“I don’t trust you to not die in the process.”

“Murph, I can’t even trust the inside of my own head right now. You want to be all worried about me? Worry about that. Mab can read my thoughts-”

“Is she reading them now?”

 _Yes_.

 ** _No_**. No, she couldn’t be. If she were, if she knew, everyone here would have been eviscerated...

“I-” I took a deep breath. Closed my eyes, and reached out into my thoughts, thinking of- anything. Marcone’s face. Maggie, crying. Lasciel. Susan. Blood on my neck. _Susansusan_ susan _susan_ susan… “I don’t know.”

Murphy was still watching me, clearly waiting for some kind of further response. When none came, she sighed.

"Harry, you and Thomas…” I stiffened, my burnt hand tightening on the edge of my coat.

“What about Thomas?”

“You…” She hesitated for a long moment. “Look, Harry, I know something about the psychological symptoms of abuse survivors. I know what post-traumatic stress looks like. I’ve gone to fucking seminars about this stuff, for God’s sake. You can pretend all you want to the others, Harry, but you really- that really wasn’t okay. I know you don’t want to talk about this, but if Mab’s been forcing you to have sex with her for the last two years-”

“No she hasn’t.”

Murphy looked briefly frustrated.

“Harry-”

“She _hasn’t_. I’ve never been forced. I chose this.” Mab didn’t _make_ me participate, those times when she needed the Winter Knight to…well, anyway. It was always ceremonial, anyway, official stuff, unless she wanted to reward me.

(Maeve, on the other hand, _liked_ playing with me.)

I’d agreed to be the Winter Knight. I’d said yes.

Murphy looked like she didn’t like my answer, and was fully prepared to keep digging until she got one she did like. I bit back the urge to snarl at her. 

“ _Really_ , Murph. You can stop with the regulation trauma-talk: I haven’t been touched in a bad place, I do not feel violated or depressed, and I don’t need medication. Random…flashbacks not withstanding. I’m _fine_.”

She was _looking_ at me. “You’ve had this conversation before.” I shifted irritably.

“I _have_ been through foster care.” She kept looking, and I bit back the urge to keep being sarcastic. She was trying to help, after all. "Look. I made you a promise, ten years ago now, that I wouldn't keep secrets from you without a good reason. Trust me to keep that promise now."

“Just-” she hesitated, “you’ll tell me, wouldn’t you? If there was something I could do?”

I looked down at the familiar, poorly-concealed worry and affection on her face, swallowed against the lump of ice trying to well up my throat, and pulled up a smile.

“Of course I would, Karrin. I’m good. Everything’s good. I’ll be all right.”

“…Right.”

I glanced around the room, and spotted a neatly folded flannel shirt lying over in one corner under my staff - Michael's, I'd guess by the size - and started heading over to put it on. 

“So, where is everybody else?” I reached for the bandages, but she swatted my good hand away and started wrapping up my left one, keeping her eyes carefully averted from my own. “Did any of you guys manage to get some sleep?”

Murphy sighed, and after a second of watching me fumble one-handed at buttons, turned aside to the messy pile of first-aid materials, rummaging through them to pull out a tube of antiseptic ointment, bandages, and gauze. “Most of the others went home around eleven, about an hour before you woke up, We’ve been taking watches in shifts. Except Thomas; as far as I know, he’s spent the night sulking outside the door like some kind of gargoyle. Anna and Georgia and Daniel went to escort Michael and the kids back to the Carpenter’s. As of the last check-in, they were all doing fine.”

She reached out to swab ointment across the brand, wrapping the gauze and bandages around my injured left hand. In spite of the pain in my ribs and the sparks of Winter magic still dancing their way out of my limbs, I couldn’t hold back a grin at the news. I couldn’t imagine a safer place for Maggie than the Carpenter’s archangel-warded threshold, with an ex-Knight, a werewolf, an urban mercenary, and a psychic planted firmly between her and danger.

Murphy eyed my smile suspiciously, and I grinned winder in response.

“What are you so happy about?”

“You. And Maggie,” I grinned, enjoying the ability to say her name openly, without worrying who'd hear. "You’ve got angels watching out for you.”

“…Yeah. Right.” Her voice was surprisingly bitter, as she tied the bandages off. All was obviously not right between Murphy and God.

I really, really wished I didn’t think that was my fault.

Until today – yesterday, now, I guessed, although I’d have to check a clock soon – Murphy had never shown signs of wanting the sword. She’d seemed, actually, more than halfway afraid of it, and she had reacted with visceral horror the one time the Sword’s archangel had used her body as a vessel to speak through. Murphy had spent months recovering from psychic rape after Kravos had taken over her mind years ago. She hated losing control, and magical politics, and moral ambiguity, and for my sake, she’d just waded neck-deep into all three.

“Hey.” I reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it. “Karrin. Are you doing oka-”

She had just started to open her mouth when a burst of power splashed abruptly up against my Winter senses. Someone was trying to break through Molly’s wards.

I reached out to grab my staff, propped on the wall just beside the door, and staggered painfully up to my feet. Murphy, beside me, had frozen with her eyes wide, both hands white-knuckled on the hilt of her sword. “What _was_ that?”

Before I could open my mouth to answer her, the door slammed open, and Marcone crashed through, followed by Sanya and a half-naked, wild-eyed Billy. Sometime in the intervening minutes, Marcone had stripped off his shirt and jacket, leaving him dressed in nothing but an undershirt, holster, and muck-coated trousers. This did not actually make the livid bloodstains spread down his front – at least two of which were roughly the shape of my hands – look any less disgusting.

“Someone’s trying to break through the front door. We need you upstairs. Borden, Sanya with me- Harry, stay back-”

Murphy had already taken off running by the time he finished the sentence; Billy was hopping from foot to foot as he stumbled after her, tearing off his trousers as he ran.

I chose to interpret “back” as “precisely three steps behind Karrin, and one foot to the left.” Like Hell was I leaving her alone going into a fight.

I’d thought I’d lost her, back at Raith Manor. For nearly six terrible seconds before Thomas told me otherwise, I’d thought Mab had caught her. I’d thought she was gone. And now that I knew otherwise, I was going to protect her, come Hell, Hunt or high water. Murphy had been dragged into more than enough darkness already because of me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Congratulations, you guessed it: this fic is officially a for-want-of-a-nail-type Cold Days AU! :D 
> 
> This means that all the changes between the world of this fic and traditional DF canon are the result of two small differences, combined with liberal meta-guessing and some only moderately implausible inferences. The first of these differences has (hopefully) been made clear in this chapter: Harry never gave Lasciel's coin back to the church after her shade was destroyed in the Raith Deeps. Instead, he kept it buried in his strongbox-and-circle wards underneath his apartment, where it was later found and appropriated by Marcone.
> 
> The second difference will be made clear shortly, and involves the other character in this fic who is very noticeably Not Yet Dead.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry's life is not actually a gay porno, no matter how much it may occasionally resemble one to the unbiased outside observer.

_Out then spak the Queen_

We all charged into the church lobby to find the doors standing open, the lock on the ground, and Kincaid, the Archive, Marci, and Andi all standing arrayed in the lobby in some kind of bizarre parody of a four-way Mexican standoff. Andi and had a gun trained on Kincaid, Kincaid had a gun in each hand aimed at Andi and Marci, Marci was snarling bristle-furred and open-mouthed at Ivy, and Ivy was eyeing Marci speculatively as if wondering whether she was safe to pet.

“You can put the weapons away, guys,” I called out hastily, as Kincaid’s and Andi’s guns twitched simultaneously. “I know these two.”

In front of me, Marcone had frozen in his tracks, looking briefly surprised and uncertain.

“Ivy. You came.”

“Of course,” said Ivy, nodding back at him. “Just to observe, I can’t- I mean-” The implacable self-assurance of the Archive eroded rapidly before Marcone’s gaze, leaving her small and sad and very, very human. “It’s good to see you again.”

Ivy and Marcone had literally been through Hell together, held captive and tortured by Nicodemus at Demonreach for over a week. I guess that kind of thing leaves a bond.

“Wait, they’re friends?” said Butters, stumbling up behind Sanya. “What are they doing here? How did they find us? Why is the door open?”

“Butters, everyone, meet the Archive,” I announced. “She’s kind of omniscient. Ivy, meet Butters and everyone.”

“Hello,” Ivy bowed briefly. “I apologize for breaking through your wards. I mended the break after less than .0007152 of a second, quickly enough that your location could not have been compromised by magical means, but I am well aware of the inherent discourtesy. Ordinarily, of course, I would have attempted to leave them intact, but I am afraid bringing Kincaid onto holy ground required particular preparations-”

Marcone’s eyes slid from Ivy to Kincaid, and without moving so much as a muscle in his face, his whole attitude suddenly became _deadly_ with rage.

“Don’t,” Ivy said, stepping forward quickly to put a hand on Marcone’s sleeve. Very calmly, very deliberately, he settled back on his heels.

“I thought I had made it clear, Hellhound, that you were no longer welcome in my city.”

Kincaid shrugged, unrepentant. “Kid wanted to come. Besides, not like it’s an issue now, right? Dresden’s back. I think he’s probably the first job I’ve ever failed to fini-”

He was abruptly slammed into the wall by a hundred and eighty-five pounds of pissed-off vampire.

“ _You_ ,” snarled Thomas, teeth bared like an animal, eyes flaring white. “ _You’re_ the one who killed Harry!”

“Wow,” sputtered Kincaid. “I actually can’t decide whether I’m terrified or turned on right now. Also, _Dresden_? Seriously _,_ Raith? What _is_ it about that wiza-”

“I will tear your throat out with my bare teeth,” Thomas spat.

“Definitely turned on _and_ terrified,” Kincaid squeaked, and did something complicated with his hands and his gun that sent the two of them grappling sideways along the wall.

“Thomas!” I yelled, moving forward belatedly. “Gods, Thomas, stop it, I _asked_ him to kill me-”

“Kincaid!” Ivy was yelling from beside me, “stop that at once, this isn't professional-”

I managed to get a hand on Thomas’s arm, and was promptly walloped over the head so hard I went flying backward into the wall. I struggled upright, aching, dazed, and suddenly, seriously pissed off.

“Okay, you two, that’s _it_ -”

Before I could blast ice crystals all over the pair of them, Marcone stepped forward and put a gun to Ivy’s temple.

Kincaid disengaged from Thomas so fast I didn’t see him _moving_.

“Thomas Ebenezer Raith,” said Marcone, sharply, just as Thomas had managed to pick himself up and was about to lunge back toward Kincaid. He checked back abruptly at the sound of his Name, muscles quivering. “I will allow you to kill exactly _one_ of either the Hellhound or the Winter Lady. Make your decision now.”

Thomas stared at him for a long moment, then, slowly, backed away. Marcone lowered his gun. Marci, poised next to Andi, sat carefully back on her haunches, and I lowered my staff.

_How in the name of all the stars had Marcone found out my brother's Name?_

“Better,” said Marcone dryly.

“Wow,” said Kincaid, staring from me, to Marcone, to Thomas, and back to Marcone again. “Why do I feel like there’s a whole fucking lot of backstory here that I’m missing out on?”

“More to the point, Jared, what the hell are you doing showing your face around here?” Murphy demanded. She looked grimly unhappy to see Kincaid, and my gut twisted uneasily with the memory: they used to be lovers. Murphy had broken it off after I’d died.

Apparently, it hadn’t been pretty.

“Not my idea,” Kincaid told her nervously, eyeing up Marcone and Thomas, who had slunk over to prop himself up against the wall to my right. Thomas bared his teeth. “The kid wanted a visit.”

Ivy offered Thomas a polite smile.

“I must apologize for the inconvenience, Mr. Raith. However, if it allays your concern, I can promise we will only be staying for a few minutes-”

“Whoa!” I said, because I could practically feel Marcone’s kicked-puppy disappointment radiating out from my left. “Hey, that’s okay, they didn’t mean anything by it, Ivy. No one here is going to attack Kincaid, are they, Thomas? _Are_ they?”

“Fine,” Thomas snarled. He was still breathing hard; his eyes were flickering from gray to silver in a way that I was sure was at most 50% a result of the flickering lamplight. Ivy blinked.

“Oh, no. Please do not blame Mr. Raith for the brief nature of our visit. Its duration is unrelated to Mr. Kincaid’s unprofessional behavior.”

“Raith attacked me first!”

“The fistfight was not unprofessional. Using the fistfight as an excuse to flirt with a White Court Vampire in front of an impressionable fourteen-year-old was.”

“You’re not impressionable,” Kincaid objected. “You’ve read more porn than I know _exists_. And I’m pretty sure Raith’s taken anyway. I just can’t figure out by whom.” He eyed Marcone and Thomas warily, eyes jumping from one side of me to the other. “What exactly _is_ going on with Dresde-”

“Go ahead,” said Thomas, in a voice of quiet menace, “Keep asking questions about Harry. Who you _murdered_. I dare you.”

Kincaid paused for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Y’know what? I’m just gonna stick with the picture that’s forming in my brain. It’s probably sexier anyway.”

I felt my face turning beet red again.

“The real picture has nothing to do with sex!”

Kincaid snorted.

“It has to do with Raith, are you kidding me? Of course it has to do with sex. Even getting roughed up by that guy makes me feel dirty.”

“I will tell you about all the dirty bits once everything is safely over,” Ivy reassured him _._ “For now, however, we must attend to business.” She straightened her shoulders, pulling the Archive around her like a mantle. “I come bearing official messages for Mr. Marcone and Mr. Dresden, from the Leanansidhe and the Gatekeeper of the White Council of Wizards.”

I mentally groaned. The last time the Gatekeeper had left a message for me, it had involved Outsiders, time travel, and two separate potential Apocalypses, and I’d only figured out what the damn thing meant after it was too late to do anybody any good. I _really_ wasn’t looking forward to another one.

Ivy fixed her eyes on Marcone.

“The Gatekeeper has asked me to warn you to reconsider the coin in which you pay your debts.”

Marcone’s spine went stiff. “If the White Council wanted me to pay any attention to their demands, then _they_ should have taken steps to protect their people. Or demonstrated some actual fucking competency at some point over the last three years. I’m not in the habit of taking orders from washed-up has-beens.”

A tiny smile quirked at one side of Ivy’s face. “He said you’d say that. And he also said that when you did, I was to tell Mr. Dresden that he’s sorry, but if you allow Mr. Marcone to continue his current endeavor, your Doom will fall upon you before this day’s end.”

Well, that was…characteristically ominous and unhelpful.

I sighed. “Right. Of _course_ he does.” I needed more coffee before I could possibly begin to process inscrutable warnings. I needed about ten _gallons_ more coffee. Or Coca-Cola. Or sleep.

"The Leanansidhe has asked me to tell you all that the Lady of Winter has begun to suspect something is wrong with her Knight. She fears there is not much time left."

 _Shit_.

Mab being after us was one thing. Mab was fair. Cruel, but fair. She would kill all of my friends publicly for daring to do this, of course, and it would probably be nastily messy and painful, but Mab wouldn't string out the executions longer than necessary. Maeve, on the other hand...

Maeve enjoyed pain. Maeve _especially_ enjoyed my pain. If Maeve was the one to catch us, we would all be worse than dead.

“She’s also asked me to tell Mr. Dresden,” Ivy added, staring directly at me, “that her hounds have caught the scent of blood.”

Blood. My mother’s blood. _My_ blood.

Hell’s bells.

Murphy was really, actually pregnant.

Intellectually, I had known this was going to happen. But it was different to see the proof myself – Murphy, pregnant (God, that was weird) with a baby.

My baby. _Our_ baby.

Our _child_.

Stars and _stones_.

“Was that all?” snapped Murphy, glaring at Kincaid over her crossed arms. “Because if so, not to put too fine a point on it, Jared, but I'm sure we'd all be much happier if you went the fuck away.”

Marcone bowed his head and offered Ivy a graceful hand, but she ignored it, barreling straight in to throw both her gangly tweenaged arms around his middle.

“I missed you,” she said, face muffled in his chest. “You’re so _stupid_ sometimes.”

“Ivy,” Marcone said, helplessly, staring down at her in naked, terrified wonder. “You can’t interfere-”

“I know, I know. But you’re stupid anyway.” Her voice wobbled.

I stared – I think we all did. The Archive isn’t supposed to form emotional attachments. She’s so powerful it would quite literally be dangerous for everyone on Earth. There were reasons why Archives didn’t get emotionally involved. They were good reasons, with blood-spattered historical examples, and every single horrifying one of them was flashing before my eyes.

But none of those reasons meant a damn next to the one that made me first decide to give her a name: underneath all the ages-old wisdom and power, the Archive was really just a frightened little girl.

“Ivy, everything’s gonna be all right,” I said, moving over to pat at her shoulder and try to sound soothing. I don’t think I did a very good job.

She disentangled herself, and considered this for a second, head cocked to one side.

“You do not have sufficient data to justify that conclusion. Are you trying to make me feel better?”

…And _that_ was why I didn’t say the Archive was a _normal_ frightened little girl.

“Uh, yeah, I am, Ivy. I don’t like seeing you upset.”

“Everything _will_ be all right,” said Marcone. “And I, at least, _do_ have sufficient data to justify that conclusion.”

“No one ever has sufficient data to justify that conclusion,” said Ivy sadly. “And they all write it down anyway: ‘happily ever after.’ But I am afraid I really do have to leave. Thank you for your letters, Baron, and for not killing Kincaid.”

She gave Marcone one last hug, scritched Marci’s ears – making Marci blink and, belatedly, yelp in surprise – and then gravely shook out her shoulders and headed for the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter this time, guys, sorry. If it makes you feel better, I promise the next one will be extra-long to make up for it. :)


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If they were sensible people, Harry and company would all spend this next chapter getting some much-needed sleep. But, since they aren’t sensible people, I instead offer you Mouse, midnight munchies, miscommunications, Mysterious Mollyness, and, finally, some of the beginnings of an explanation about what the hell is going on.

_But_ _the night is Halloween, lady,  
The morn is Hallowday_

The second the door swung shut behind Ivy, Billy was already bursting into human form, not even pausing to grab for clothes or cover himself. His muscles were shaking.

“Georgia’s late for check-in.” Expressions of nasty shock swept over Andi’s and Murphy’s faces. Beside me, I could feel Marcone go tense. My hand tightened involuntarily on my staff.

 _Maggie_.

“It might not be anything!” Billy yelped, watching my face. “The phones aren’t working, that’s why Sanya and I were coming to find you all, before the wards went off-”

 “We should go check on them,” said Andi immediately, echoing the desire ringing through my gut. _Find Maggie_. “Someone should go see if they’re okay.”

“It could be nothing,” Butters echoed, face worried.

“Or,” Marcone pointed out, “it could be a ploy to get us out from behind the wards. You heard the Leanansidhe’s message – Winter’s getting suspicious. And if we go after them, and find Winter there waiting…”

“…Alacazam, Poof, crunchy mortal icicles,” I muttered, shoving ferociously down on the panic trying to claw up my gut, on the adrenaline telling me to drop everything _now_ and _run find Maggie_. After all, I had tried to call earlier, and I hadn’t been able to get through; this didn’t mean anything. “How far over the deadline are they?”

“Only about ten minutes or so,” said Billy. “They were supposed to check in at 12:30. It might not be anything, they might have tried to call and just couldn’t get through, but. Well. Given our luck so far?”

We exchanged looks. On the one hand, Marcone had a point; it could very well be nothing, and it wasn’t exactly as if anyone’s phones had been working so far tonight, and Winter was indisputably on the prowl. As traps went, this one was fairly obvious, and I wasn’t too eager help Maeve come kill all my friends and drain the remaining eight pints of blood from my body.

On the other hand, my daughter was out there somewhere, and I really didn’t give a crap.

“I’ll go,” Murphy volunteered. “If anything’s wrong, we need somebody who can get them to safety-”

“Like hell,” I snarled. Murphy was _pregnant_. With my baby. If I had my way, she would never go anywhere near anything dangerous ever again.

The rational, non-alpha-male part of my brain whispered that Murphy probably might take issue with this point of view.

 _Fuck_ rational.

“No,” Marcone echoed, voice tight and clipped. “You are, regrettably, not expendable right now.”

“You do know only supervillians actually say things like that out loud, right?” Murphy's eyes had narrowed, but I continued before she could open her mouth. “ _I’ll_ go. And that way Murphy can stay safe-”

“ _You_ are not expendable _at all_ ,” Marcone snapped. “Send one of the wolves, if you absolutely must continue this idiocy, or, better, one of you could walk _five feet outside the magically warded building_ and make a simple phone call.”

The roaring howl of frustration sparked by his damn condescending tone made me want to _burn things_ , but before I could get a chance to open my mouth I was promptly cut off, along with whatever order Marcone was planning to give, by the church doors swinging open behind us, revealing Charity, Molly, Daniel, several large bags of food, a huge red-haired Kevlar-clad mafia goon and an equally huge, ecstatically joyful Foo Dog.

“Mouse!” He charged right into me, going so fast that poor Marci – who had only managed to pull her sundress about halfway on – fell over sideways, and reared up to start washing my face in big doggy licks. “ _Good_ dog! What are you doing here?”

“Sorry we’re late for check-in,” Daniel said, carrying two heaping bags of groceries over to drop at Murphy's feet. At the sight of Marcone, Hendricks dropped his weapon immediately, moving to stand between me and Marcone and giving me a suspicious glare: Cujo lose mob boss. Cujo find mob boss. Cujo protect mob boss from dangerously unstable wizards.

Things must look awful simple from inside of Hendricks’s head.

“Since the cell network’s down, we thought we’d come over in in person,” Charity added, hauling one of the food bags over onto a nearby table without letting go of Molly’s wrist. Molly, I noticed, was still dressed in the same filthy, blood-spattered rags we’d found her in, was carrying several of what looked to be Marcone’s old color-coded thermoses, and seemed to be avoiding my eyes. “What are you all doing still awake at this hour? Harry, what happened to your hand?”

“Forget us, what’s Marcone’s henchman doing here with you?” I demanded, crouching down so I could scratch Mouse’s ears in the good place. “And where did you guys find Mouse?”

“Dog dragged me,” Hendricks grunted, still glaring as he dropped a big, unnervingly familiar black duffel into a nearby pew. “Showed up while I was busy getting Sam’s surveillance team out of that dumpster by the Carpenter house. The fuckin’ thing hasn’t left me alone since.”

Right. Thomas. I’d almost forgotten that he’d been the one to break Maggie out of the Carpenter home. I should have known my brother would’ve taken the time to incapacitate Marcone’s guards.

I also knew, however, that Thomas _wouldn’t_ have incapacitated Mouse. Thomas knew Mouse, and Mouse knew Thomas, and beloved uncle or no, there was no way Mouse would have let Maggie leave the safety of the Carpenter threshold in the company of a White Court Vampire without trying to follow. Which lead me to wonder what exactly Mouse had been doing away from the Carpenter house when Maggie was “kidnapped”.

Something had happened to take my daughter’s best friend and guardian away from her. I wanted to know what.

I buried my fingers in Mouse’s ruff, and gave Hendricks a big, tooth-filled smile.

“Awww, _Cujo_. I’m _so_ glad you finally found someone smarter than you are to manage the hard thinking-”

I paused. Mouse, who’d been happily snuffling me over, had gone suddenly as still as a hunting dog, his whole body oriented in the direction of my burned and bandaged hand.

“It’s okay, boy.” I lifted my arm up to let him inspect it, ruffling his ears with my free hand. “I’m not injured or anything. Well, not badly. A few old wounds opened up because Marcone managed to pull my coin ou-”

Before I could finish the syllable, Marcone had been knocked flat on his back on the floor by a hundred and seventy pounds of Foo Dog, and was having his face slathered with enthusiastic, sloppy kisses.

“Mouse!” I yelled as Hendricks lunged forward faster than I would’ve thought possible and started trying to grab Mouse’s collar. “Bad dog, Mouse, get off!”

Mouse, evading Hendricks’s hands easily, sprang joyfully away, whole _body_ wagging, his tongue hanging out in an ecstatic doggy grin.

Marcone, flat on his back with dog drool all over his mouth and chest, sputtered.

A better man would probably have nobly resisted the urge to mock his rumpled, slobber-stained nemesis. A less exhausted one would probably have stopped laughing after the first ninety seconds, but hey, it had been an awfully long couple of days.

“Fuckin’ animal,” Hendricks grunted. “Sorry, boss.”

“What do you mean, your coin?” Daniel demanded. He was giving me a wary look, which was, I guess, kind of justified, since my laughter had turned strangely high-pitched and still wasn’t stopping, and had stepped halfway in front of Murphy, one hand on his gun. I made a concentrated effort, and managed to stuff the unwarranted hysteria back down my throat.

“Harry was carrying the Denarius Lasciel inside him,” Sanya announced calmly. “Now he does not anymore.”

“You got him de-eviled?” Molly was staring over at Marcone with an expression of hesitant, tremblingly hopeful wonder, looking half like she wanted to lunge down at him herself. I scowled, and Mouse bounced merrily back to lick my face, tail whirling _whup-whup-whup_ like an overjoyed windmill.

“We do not like Marcone,” I informed my dog. “Marcone is bad and evil and kills ex-employees with tommy guns kept in violin cases. Marcone does _not_ get thank-you kisses for rescuing Harry from the big bad Denarian.”

Mouse sneezed at me.

I get no respect.

“Believe me, Mr. Dresden," said Marcone, gingerly unpeeling himself from the floor, and then, with a look of disgust, unpeeling his now blood-and-drool-crusted undershirt from his body, "if I’d known kisses were on offer, I would have conducted this entire business _very_ differently-”

“You murdered someone?”

Murphy cut Marcone off mid-sentence. Her face had gone cold and grim, with an expression I’d seen her wear at crime scenes.

“Techincally, _I_ was busy holding Mr. Dresden while he bled all over the carpet,” Marcone made a few ineffectual swipes at his face with the ruined shirt, and grimaced. “In order that he be freed from the Denarian’s shadow, it was necessary that somebody else should freely accept the coin-”

“You murdered someone,” Murphy repeated.

“And Harry was freed from a demon that was infiltrating, corrupting and destroying both his magic and his soul," he said, a hint of irritation leaking into his voice. "I am _allegedly_ responsible for the murder of many other innocent Chicago citizens, kittens, and babies; I doubt I’ll lose any sleep over this particular death. Do you have a _problem_ , Mr. Hendricks?”

I blinked. Hendricks was _glaring_ at Marcone. Like, seriously, pissed-off, furious glaring.

“Saw Gard,” he grunted. “Talked.”

There was a long, uneasy pause.

“…Ah,” said Marcone. He glanced sideways at me.

I didn’t bother to hide my interested stare. The Marcone-and-Hendricks drama was bizarrely compelling, almost as compelling as the sight of Marcone half-naked and dripping with drool. He really had lost weight, underneath all that Kevlar – his shoulderblades winged out sharp, severe, tracing shadows like wings beneath wiry-muscled shoulders. I could practically count the ridges of ribs tucked under shadowed skin. I was willing to bet those were new scars, too, striped angry and red across the smooth lines of his chest and sternum, the skin around them still smooth and olive-tinged, glowing wet and warm in the yellow churchlight.

“…We’ll discuss this later, Mr. Hendricks.”

Hendricks’s thuglike face collapsed into a still deeper scowl, but he shut up.

“We are _all_ going to discuss _all_ of this later,” Charity announced, effortlessly drawing the whole room’s attention with all the power of a woman used to commanding armies, supernaturally powerful villains, mercenary attack squads, and, worst of all, toddlers. “ _Much_ later. After everybody gets some food and water and _sleep_.” This last sentence seemed to be directed particularly toward me and Molly. “I would warrant not a one of you has gotten any rest at all while we’ve been away.”

“We got you food,” Molly added quietly, sidling up to push one of the color-coded thermoses into my hands. I screwed off the lid and inspected it gingerly. The potion inside seemed to be brown, chilled, bubbly, and sweet-smelling...

Coke. My apprentice had brought me a thermos full of coca-cola.

“You are a wonderful, beautiful, saint of a woman, and I love you,” I told Molly, before I could think. She blushed all the way up to her hairline.

 _Whoops_.

To cover the way everyone was looking at us, I took a hasty swig, enjoying the taste of cold, bubbly bliss and the much-needed tingle of caffeine through my veins. 

“Before anything else happens,” Marcone announced, eyes fixed on me and my coke with an expression of equal parts jealous ire and naked longing, “I am going to get _clean_.”

“This is a house of God,” said Charity, frowning. “There aren’t any showers.”

“There’s a hose out back in the parking lot,” Murphy offered, a nasty gleam dancing around the corners of her eyes.

Marcone grimaced eloquently.

“If needs must. I don’t suppose any of my new employees could see fit to provide me with dry clothes?”

“Nah,” said Billy, grinning widely, “but, hey, I bet there’s plenty of volunteers happy to help hose you down.”

“Oh, _please_ , sir,” I took another slug of liquid ambrosia and smiled, full of teeth. “ _Do_ let me attend you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Dresden, I am quite capable of managing,” Marcone snapped, with the dirtiest look I’d seen him give anyone in a long time. I flipped him my middle finger, and trooped back into the church hall with the others to enjoy a long-awaited reunion with my heart’s desire.

 _Mmmm_. Bliss. Cold, bubbly, caffeine-y bliss

I paused at the sight of the weapons-and-food covered pews, as something occurred to me. “Say, just how much of this church have we taken over? We don't have to clear out for midnight Mass or anything, do we?”

“That's monks, Harry," Billy chuckled, coming up beside me to grab his discarded shirt off the pews. "We've pretty much had the run of the place, apart from evening services. Apparently the Ragged Lady did a few favors for the congregation a couple months ago – between her and Michael, Father Forthill was more than happy to help out.”

“Here,” said Butters, shoving an open bottle of Gatorade and a cruller into my bandaged hand. “Eat. Drink. You lost nearly a pint or so of blood back there, and as a definitely-not-licensed physician, I can tell you definitively that the dead people I work with usually have a lot less water and sugar inside them than the living ones.”

I rolled my eyes, but obediently tucked into the donut. All of my taste buds immediately perked up and started reminding me that I hadn’t eaten in about a day and a half, and I quickly reached forward to grab another two pastries and a breakfast burrito before heading off to hunt down my brother.

I finally found Thomas busily brooding at the very back of the church, his eyes fixed on Molly’s small figure at the other end and his hands – I noticed with no small amount of worry – shaking. His bruises hadn’t faded much, and he was holding himself funny, as if one of his ribs had been broken. There was a slick, mesmerizing grace lining his movements, making my eyes stick on him in a way that made me physically nauseous, and the light from the church was reflecting off his pupils as if off a silver mirror.

“So,” I demanded, dropping as unobtrusively as I could into the pew to his left, “what in Star’s name was that back there?”

“What was what?”

“Don’t give me that. You looked like you were about two seconds away from jumping Kincaid. You've spent the whole night hiding from everyone, and you bolted the second Molly walked through the door.”

He waved an airy hand. “I’m fine. I’ve gone longer than this without feeding, I’ve got it under control.”

“Thomas,” I said warningly. “I’ve seen you like this before: you get paranoid, and erratic, and aggressive. You’re a danger to yourself and others, and the last time things got this bad you nearly ate Molly. If all that wasn’t enough, we’re all going to be fighting the Hunt in about twelve or so hours, you haven’t eaten or slept since yesterday, and you’re obviously still not fully healed from- from before.”

From having a cave dropped on top of him while trying to defend Maggie. From being beaten around the ribs with my staff when he tried to- to-

Moving on.

“Just- go cut somebody’s hair or something, all right? You’re obviously Hungry.”

Thomas scowled. “I’m not going to eat anybody, Harry. I’m safe. Chipped. No need to worry about your precious friends-”

“I’m worried about _you_ , you idiot! You obviously need to feed from somebody soon.”

He bared his teeth at me in something that could only charitably be defined as a smile.

“Yeah? You volunteering?”

“ _Thomas_ -”

“You know what? It’s really not any of your fucking business.”

He shoved himself up off the bench and went storming away down the length of the aisle, loud stone footfalls making the whole church echo.

“Thomas!” I yelled, ignoring the startled looks from people all around the hall, “Thomas, get back here-”

The big doors at the other end slammed shut behind him. Faintly, I could hear the echo of the smaller door to the outside swinging closed, along with Marci’s startled yelp.

I forcibly shoved down the urge to set my stupid brother on fire, and shot Murphy, who’d already half-unsheathed her sword, a rueful look. Her mouth twisted.

Andi blinked at me. “Wow, Harry. What did you _say_ to him?”

I opened my mouth, checked myself, sighed, and closed it again.

“Nothing. Nothing…important, at least.”

“Someone should go make sure he’s okay,” Butters said worriedly, echoing my thoughts.

“I’ll go.” Billy stood up and started pulling off his shirt. “I’m in love with Georgia, I’m probably safer around him than any of you would b-” He cut himself off hastily, turned a deep, tomato-red, and stared between me and Murphy in half-terrified, pleading apology.

“It’s okay, Billy,” I said wearily, scrubbing a hand over my face. “Just go.” After a second or two of consideration, I took myself and my pastries back over to lean against the wall by the door, along with a thermos that I was maybe 90% sure contained coffee. Despite Charity's best intentions, it didn't look like I'd be getting to sleep safely any time soon.

“Say,” I asked Charity, who had come over to drop a blanket over my shoulders. Over on the far side of the hall, I could see a similar blanket wrapped around Molly. “Where did you guys get all this food, anyway?”

“Mr. Marcone has promised to reimburse all of us our expenses,” she said serenely, tugging the coffee-thermos out of my hands with a stern look and heading back toward Molly with an armful of water bottles, croissants, and fruit. “It was in the contract.”

Daniel, passing by with an armful of ammunition, glared at me, face sour. “We figured billing the mob for 100-something donuts was an appropriate way to celebrate the end of Karrin’s days on the right side of the law.”

Hell's _bells_.

I hadn’t even thought of that. I hadn’t even considered what signing Marcone’s contract must have meant for Murphy – her most of all, more than any of the others. Was that why she’d picked up the sword? Because she knew, the second she agreed to work for Marcone, that she would never work with the police again?

Empty Night. The things she’d given up for me…

I wanted to believe that Murphy was right: that the reason the ritual hadn’t worked for us was because we’d been coerced into sex. But the real truth was that I had no way of knowing. She could be right, or we could just not love each other enough to make it work.

Or, a tiny, unhappy voice whispered in the back of my head, maybe it’s just that _she_ doesn’t love _you_ …

I tore my eyes away from where Murphy and Billy had started unloading large piles of very deadly-looking sharp things from Hendricks’ duffel bag, and glanced around the church hall, making a mental note of the whispered argument Molly and her mother were having over in the far corner. Marci was still trying to fix the lock on the lobby door, Marcone had wandered off somewhere, presumably in search of soap, Andi and Daniel had gone to join Butters back by the donuts, and if I squinted, I could see a familiar-shaped, T-shirt wrapped lump over in one corner, no doubt housing Bob’s skull. The clock right above it read 1:06AM.

I couldn’t help noticing, despite everybody else’s silence on the matter, that I seemed to be missing about six hours of time. The argument in the hall last night (tonight?) couldn't have ended much latr than 7PM, yet by the time I woke up, Butters sitll hadn't finished stitching my wounds closed.

Marcone was acting weird. Thomas was acting irrational. And Molly, from what I could see, was as reluctant to talk to me or meet my eyes as Charity was to let Molly out of her sight. As far as I knew, Molly hadn’t spoken to either of her parents, much less visited home, for the last year and a half – the last time we’d met, she’d been barely coherent, bleeding out after narrowly escaping an encounter with a rogue Black Court Vampire. And now she showed up, still dressed in rags after following Charity around half the night, happy to bring me my favorite drink but unwilling to look at me directly, or to listen to a woman who plainly only had her own best interests at heart.

I scrubbed a hand over my face again. I wanted to help my apprentice – I wanted to protect her, to make her happy again, to keep her close and safe and…

And that kind of thinking was exactly what had gotten us into this mess in the first place. There wasn’t a kindness I could show Molly now that wouldn’t come with some kind of price.

“So,” boomed a deep voice from behind me, “you are practicing the wangsting, then?”

“…Hi, Sanya.”

“I have been expanding my English vocabulary,” he informed me. “Lolcats is very helpful for this purpose. Also the twitter.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told him. “Are either of these things likely to interfere with this rescue or try to kill us all within the next seventeen hours?”

“No. Though many would say they are a force for great evil.”

“Yeah, well, we’ve got a pretty handsome measure of evil on our side already." I didn't bother to suppress the bitterness in that statement.

He followed my gaze across the room to where Murphy was talking to Hendricks, an ugly expression on her face and one hand on her sword.

“I’m worried about Murphy,” I told Sanya quietly.

Murphy _was_ a cop, even more, almost, than I'd been a wizard. She'd been an officer on the force since before she could drink. Even if she wasn't technically with the police any longer, she had still done her best over the past two years to uphold the law in Chicago and at Brighter Futures, setting herself up as a kind of law-and-decency enforcer for the supernatural. I didn't know what being forced to work with Marcone would do to her - was _already_ doing to her - but it couldn't be good.

Sanya was quiet for a long minute, looking down at my freshly bandaged hand, then slowly reached out and dropped a hand on my shoulder.

“Shiro once said to me, when I was very weak, that to truly have faith, you must first know the ugly side of your faith as well as the good. Just like, to love somebody, you must see their ugly side and love it also. I think Miss Murphy is seeing some ugly parts right now.” His eyes crinkled down at me. “Miss Murphy is a strong woman. She has faith. The ugly parts will not break her, just as they did not break Shiro.”

“Right,” I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, “no ugly needed, just Harry Dresden. Funny how it wasn’t ‘ugliness’ that broke Michael, either.”

I was under no illusions about why Charity didn’t like me, why Daniel distrusted me: I’d gotten their father crippled. I’d gotten Shiro killed, me and Nicodemus, when he decided to give his life for mine.

Sanya just smiled at me and snorted.  “Ugly parts bounce off of Michael. He is like the back of a duck with water. Splash, splash.”

I didn’t have a great track record with Holy Knights. The fact that Murphy had just become one – especially unwillingly, especially for my sake – made me feel like something foul and rotten had slid down inside my stomach, sloshing around beside the Gatorade and Molly’s Diet Coke.

“Murphy doesn’t want to use the sword,” I told Sanya, “not really. And I’m worried she’s getting herself into a situation she can’t back out of.”

“You do not use sword. It uses you.”

“You do a great Russian Yoda,” I told Sanya, and he grinned.

“Thinking I am that give you the good drugs, they did.”

"Nah, still no morphine." Even if Charity had brought some, I didn't feel like now was a great time to be going all fuzzy-headed. Especially around Marcone. _Stars_ only knew the kinds of things that could come out of my mouth.

Sanya settled against the wall beside me, looking suddenly intent.

“Harry. How are you feeling?”

I gave him a weird look. “Like I took one-third of a kill shot to the stomach and shoulder.”

“No. How are you _feeling_?”

I blinked at him, fighting down another surge of irritation.

“Well, gee, sorry to disappoint, Dr. Phil, but I don’t actually have ‘cry into my diary’ penciled into this morning’s schedule, so-”

“Dresden,” said Sanya patiently, “you are not the only one here who has ever lost a coin.”

Oh.

Well, now I felt like a total dick.

Marcone was getting to me. Thomas was getting to me. Murphy, with her well-intentioned advice, was getting to me. Sanya was getting to me. Hell, at this point, even a naked stripper approaching me with free coffee and donuts was likely to start making me want to hit things. I scrubbed a hand over my face. This really wasn’t good.

I gave Sanya a rueful look.

“You’d think losing my coin would make me _less_ of an irritable asshole, wouldn’t you?”

He made a small amused sound. “Shiro told me once that losing the coin is not just losing a piece of metal. It is like a knife has been pulled from the heart of a tree. The knife is missing, but the space where the knife cut still remains, and the tree has grown around it into a new shape.” He acknowledged my dubious eyebrow with a smile. “Shiro liked metaphors. He said they made him sound wise.”

“Trust me,” I told him, “any metaphor sounds wise coming from a tiny old man with the ability to kick your head off. Haven’t you ever watched Kung-Fu movies?”

“These are the opiates of the masses of greedy, stupid American philistines, and beneath my dignity as a sophisticated thinker.” He gave me a sidelong look. “My favorite is Jackie Chan.”

I grinned at Sanya, and his face turned abruptly serious. “Metaphors or no metaphors. You have a new shape now. So I ask you again, Harry Dresden, how do you feel?”

How _did_ I feel?

Well. Cold, mostly – although perhaps _wintry_ would be a better word for it, given that I couldn’t sense temperatures. Hungry. Tired. And more than a little pissed-off.

It was pretty clear, given the sheer pounding strength of the cold and darkness and storm-wind thundering through my veins, that Lasciel had been blocking a substantial portion of my Winter strength. Murphy had told me once that abusers liked to make sure they had complete, total influence over their victims. However much Lasciel might say she wanted me to stay with Winter, she didn’t want Winter controlling me either.

And Mab, by the same token, wouldn’t have wanted Lasciel controlling me. Lasciel didn’t lie to me: Mab _had_ been blocking her from my thoughts. I’d been numb for so long, I couldn’t remember what good old-fashioned wrath was _like_. And as for the last time I tasted hellfire...

During those first few weeks of my Knighthood, back when Mab still used carrots in addition to sticks and rewarded me with things like feather beds and balls and pretty changeling girls to flirt with, I could remember a feeling of constant hunger for sex and violence that I’d chalked up, at the time, to some kind of poorly-channeled grief over Susan. It had flared up whenever I tried to draw on my Winter mantle – for a while there, until my first mission failed and Mab split my head open and my body open with six weeks of torture and everything went kind of numb and dull, I had wondered if it was somehow linked to my Winter power.

But in retrospect, it had tasted a lot more like sulfur.

I had been _staggeringly_ lucky. If Mab hadn’t discovered Lasciel and blocked her from my mind, I might never have twigged to what – or, rather, who – was really influencing me until she was strong enough to dominate my conscious thoughts as well as my subconscious. And when that happened, I would become little more than a human doll, tugged between Lasciel’s and Mab’s jealous possession. If I hadn’t failed that mission – if my Queen’s trust in me hadn’t been broken, if Mab hadn’t been given cause to crack open my thoughts for the first (but far, far from the last) time – Lasciel might still be reigning queen of my subconscious, twisting and distorting my personality until all that was left of me was a brutal, violence-crazed rapist, openly enjoying the missions his Queen assigned. A monster.

Uriel had given me no reassurances that a _Denarian_ couldn’t change who I was.

But now I could feel, intimately, everywhere Lasciel _wasn’t_. I could feel the scraped-raw edges of burnt-up morality, the suffering scraps of conscience that had been damaged and torn and scored by her machinations, and all of the staggering damage that had been done to my own personal sense of justice and to what, for want of a better word, I’d have to call my soul. She had damaged my self-control, probably permanently. She had ensured I was just a little closer to demeaning and depersonalizing others, to always taking the easy way out.

Lasciel had been _all over_ my subconscious, and a good chunk of the way into my magic and my emotions as well. Shiro had been right: tearing her out had left scars. Left me empty. Left me less than I had been.

It felt _amazing_.

“Clean,” I said aloud. “I feel clean.”

When I looked up, Sanya was offering me a small, private smile. “Is beautiful, _Da_?”

I swallowed against the lump in my throat, and reveled all over again in the feeling of empty spaces where hellfire used to burn.

“Yeah, Sanya. Is beautiful.”

He gave me a measured look, then a slow nod of approval.

“When I first lost my coin, Shiro stayed with me for a year and a day, watching. You, I think, will not need so long. But I shall watch you.”

I swallowed, and tasted the memory of brimstone on the back of my throat. Even five minutes ago, a statement like that would have made me want to smite things, but just now…

“Thanks.”

Sanya nodded, and went back to industriously propping up his segment of wall.

So. Mab could influence my conscious mind; my thoughts and plans and memories. But she couldn’t get at my subconscious. At what, and who, I was.

Mab couldn’t touch feelings.

I finished the rest of my breakfast burrito, thoughtfully, gave Sanya a grateful punch on the arm, and went off to find Murphy.

“So,” she said when I dropped into the pew beside her. She seemed to have appropriated my coffee-thermos, and looked approximately as tired as I felt. “You look like your morning has been filled with rainbows and sunshine so far.”

“We have an anorexic vampire on our hands,” I informed her.

Her mouth tightened. “I saw.”

“Murphy,” I repeated, wearily, “it is _not his fault_.”

“So if you’re not brooding over Thomas, what are you brooding over?”

 _You_ , I wanted to say. _Maeve. Molly. Lasciel. The fact that I can’t remember anything at all about the last six or so hours, and I’m half-afraid I’m not supposed to._

_The fact that I don’t know if I love you or not, but I’m pretty sure you’re not in love with me._

“I’m worried about Marcone,” I confessed instead. “He’s acting weird- well, weirder than usual, I mean. And he keeps _touching_ me.”

"So you noticed that, did you," she said, voice completely flat.

"I also can't help but notice that despite all of _your_ shiny new mafia contracts, he hasn't tried even once to recruit me. And he kind of has a history of doing that. You'd think this was the perfect opportunity for him."

"...Yeah. You'd think."

We shared a long, loaded look.

“You want me to investigate?” Murphy offered, quietly, her eyes tracking the figures moving busily at the other side of the room.

"I’m not sure. I – Murphy, I’ve never seen him like this before. Not even when he was taken prisoner, or when he stole the Shroud of Turin."

“You know,” Murphy said thoughtfully, “you never did figure out why he took that...” She trailed off, a familiar dogged look coming into her eyes. “Harry. Could this have anything to do with-”

“No.”

I’d interrupted her without thinking, but the idea made me pause. Historically, Marcone had only ever really gone off the rails when fighting for something or someone he cared about. Someone he loved. And Marcone loved exactly two things in this world, and one of those things was Chicago.

As for the other one…

Amanda was dead. Had been dead, for about a year and a half, killed by Denarians, and I knew better than anyone alive that John Marcone dealt with grief really, really, _really_ badly.

Murphy was still watching me, waiting for an answer.

“No,” I told her, slowly. “No, I don’t think this is like that at all. But, just in case…” I hesitated. “Make sure you keep an eye on me after the Hunt’s over, will you?”

“Both eyes. And a whole team of backup on speed-dial.” She sighed. “Although a fat lot of good that’ll do us if the cell network keeps going down.”

“I could talk to the White Council about getting some of those little stone-thingies, but I'm pretty sure they still want to arrest Molly," I sighed, too. I didn't know enough to construct my own magical method of communication, and the Za Guard were too gossipy to be freed until after the Hunt had already started. "Shame Ivy couldn’t stick around – talk about the world’s best messenger service.”

“Yeah,” Murphy agreed bitterly. “Not to mention the world’s most unwanted pregnancy test. And here I was so _hoping_ I wouldn’t have to get an abortion-”

My skin went numb. My staff clattered to the ground.

 _Now_ I could feel that missing pint or so of blood.

“…Harry?” Murphy asked, leaning forward, brow creasing with sudden worry. “Harry, are you alright?”

“Abortion?” I heard my voice break, and started again. “I- you’re killing our baby?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yuuuuuuuuuup. YOU KNEW THIS WAS COMING! *evil cackles*


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: discussion of abortion, with very polarized and opposite attitudes toward abortion expressed. If this is a trigger for you, please skim down to the line break halfway through; there will be no mention of abortion below this line.
> 
> I should also probably make the disclaimer here that neither Harry’s opinions nor Murphy’s opinions are in any way meant to represent my own opinions on abortion, nor is this chapter intended to serve any kind of political purpose. I realize that this is a highly sensitive, controversial issue, but it is used here first and foremost as a vehicle for plot and character development, and I would appreciate all commenters attempting to treat it as such.
> 
> Later note: THANK YOU everybody for respecting this request! You are the best commenters an author could wish for, and I feel so so lucky to have your feedback. :) *hugs through internet*
> 
> Unofficial theme song for this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDxqZOtqbt8

_"Why pu's thou the rose, Janet,_   
_Amang the groves sae green,_   
_And a' to kill the bonny babe_   
_That we gat us between?"_

Murphy stared at me for a second, then blinked, and something awful – something like pity – came into her eyes.

“Oh, _Harry_. Of course I’m getting an abortion.”

“…What?”

“Harry. Come on. Neither of us is in any position to raise a child.”

“But- I- you can't _kill_ our baby!”

Her brow furrowed.

“It's not a baby, it's a ball of cells, and it only exists in the first place because I was trying to _save your life_. And anyway, Harry, it’s not your decision to make!”

“Of course it’s my decision,” I said – shouted, really, trying desperately to drown out the pounding of blood in my ears. _Baby_. She was killing a baby. _Our_ baby. Murphy, the kindest, best person I knew, was going to kill our child. Distantly, I wondered if this was how all the horror stories about changeling kidnappings started. This furious, raging, desperate desire for something – someone – of your own. “It’s my- it’s _our_ _child_.”

Somewhere beyond the terrified pounding of blood in my ears, heads were beginning to turn. Murphy turned around quickly, to give what I could only assume was a truly ferocious glare to the rest of the room. I reached out to grab her sleeve and pulled her after me down the aisle to the back of the church by the front doors, well away from the eyes of curious Alphas and Carpenters, keeping my voice slow and measured as I pulled us both down into one of the pews.

“Look. Karrin. Just because you don't want this baby is no reason to kill it. We can give it away, or adopt it out anonymously, put it in- in witness protection, or something-”

“-because that worked so well last time-”

“- _this_ time you and I _both_ won’t know where it is. Or we could keep it.”

Murphy’s whole face froze up. “Be serious.”

"I _am_ being serious!" She stared at me, and I forced myself to calm down, lowering my voice again. "Look, this whole thing is supposed to be about rescuing me, right? As of tomorrow, I’ll be freed, I can help out, I can help take care of it-"

"Harry. We are not married. We're not even dating. Both of us have jobs that put our lives in danger on a daily basis, and no one in our circle of friends, including me, has even close to enough money to raise and protect another infant. Be _reasonable_."

“Okay,” I gritted out, voice carefully even.

“Okay?”

“Okay. I get it.” Because I did: I had no rights here. Murphy had said it herself – it wasn’t fair to the baby to have me involved. Any child born with me and Murphy for parents would be in just as much danger as Maggie – more danger, actually, since Lea and Vadderrung and Marcone and half of Faerie would all know all about it from practically the moment of its conception. We’d be bringing a child into the world only to put its life in constant danger; Murphy’s life would be ruined; I’d make a really really terrible father. I _got_ that.

It was just that a very large part of me didn’t _care_.

“Just- please. You don’t have to marry me, or live with me, or even see it again, just- It’s a baby, it’s _our_ baby.” Her face set, mulishly, but I cut her off before she could open her mouth. “Murphy. _Karrin_. I’m asking you. I didn’t ask you to rescue me. I didn’t ask you to get me out of Winter. I’m asking you now. _Please_. Keep the child.”

She closed her eyes.

“Harry, I’m not Susan.”

“I _know_ you’re not-”                                                                                                                  

“I’m not saying I’m not Susan because I don’t love you like she did,” she cut me off sharply. “That has nothing to do with this. _We_ have nothing to do with this. I’m saying that because _I’m_ _not her_. I don’t think I could walk away from my own child the way she did. I like you, Harry,” she continued, voice gentle. “I enjoyed having sex with you, and I’m going to do everything I can save you, but this is my body. My choice. And I’m not going to give birth to a baby that I don’t want to commit to. It wouldn’t be fair to you. It wouldn’t be fair to the kid. The way this city’s become…”

There was horror there, lurking, in the back of her voice; in the way her hand kept tracing, restlessly, to check at the side for her gun, her sword, her knife. In Molly’s madness, in Billy’s scars and Andi’s limp and the way Marcone looked at me like I was the only thing in his whole world that was going according to plan. The more I heard about the last two years, the more horrifying they sounded. Stars and stones, what had _happened_ to Murphy? What had happened to Chicago?

“You haven’t been here, I know,” Murphy was continuing. Her voice had gone shaky. “You haven’t seen it, I know, you don’t know, but it’s- Harry, it’s like the start of Armageddon out there. It’s no place to raise a child. And if I had a child, I’d have to protect it. I’d have to be responsible. I don’t have the right to risk an infant’s life because I want to fight monsters, and, Harry, I _can’t_ sit out this fight. I-It’s horrible out there. You haven’t seen it, you can’t see it, but- it’s like nobody’s safe anymore. And it just keeps getting worse, and I can’t step back and watch when people are in trouble, I _can’t_. I am telling you right now, I cannot keep this baby. I can’t be a mother and protect this city, and I- I-”

She drove a fist, hard, into the back of the pew in front of her, and I was shocked to see actual tears in her eyes. The last time I’d seen Murphy crying, I’d been dead. The time before that, Kincaid had been dying.

“I just wanted you back. I just wanted you _safe_ again, Harry, you were hurting so badly. I just wanted to help you, I don’t want- I don’t- Jesus _Christ_ , I want everybody to stop talking about this like it’s supposed to be some epic romance, like I’ve failed you somehow, like- I want to be able to talk to you again without seeing all of my ex-husbands’ faces flash before my eyes. I want you to stop trying to protect me, I want, I just- _dammit_.”

It _hurt_ to see Murphy cry, in an entirely different way than it had used to hurt me to see Susan upset. When Susan cried, or when Maggie cried or Molly cried, I wanted to gather my magic in both hands and ride out to fix the whole world and solve all their problems. But watching Murphy cry just made me want to hurt things, a low, vicious kind of ambiguous hate settling down in my gut, making me itch for something to burn.

“I want my friend back,” she said, turning to me. Her voice sounded lost. “Can I please just have my friend back?”

I wanted, more than anything, to reach out and hug her, wanted to kiss her again, wanted bury myself back in her warm human arms until I forgot the world existed, but-

We weren’t in love. She didn’t love me.

Even if a small part (a large part) of me felt like I could’ve loved her.

“I think that depends on you,” I said, keeping my voice carefully steady. “And Marcone. And whether we can find somebody in less than twelve hours who’s both willing and able to drag me away from the Hunt.”

Because in one sense, Murphy was right: this wasn’t Love, not Love as the ritual demanded. To make this rescue work, we’d need the kind of love you found in fairytales, or movies – huge and bottomless and dangerous, world-and-soul-destroying, the kind of love you set the world on fire for, the kind of love Thomas had for Justine and her for him, and I didn’t have that. Even if Murphy had wanted to be with me – wanted to make this work – we still wouldn’t have had that, because I simply didn’t know how to feel that way. I’d come close, with Susan, in those few happy weeks before she left, and hurting over that had kept me busy for the better part of a year. But now…

Molly. Murphy. Thomas. Michael. Butters, and Billy, and Georgia, and Marci. Andi and Bob and Mort and Anna, and Charity and all the Carpenter Jawas and Mouse…

I loved them. I loved all of them, and I’d happily walk through Summer fire for any or all of their sakes. But it was time to stop kidding myself: I wasn’t in love. I didn’t have anybody like that for me.

Murphy looked over at my face, and must have seen in it some of what I was thinking, because she scooted over closer to me, her thigh heavy and solid against mine, shoulder jostling my arm.

“Hey. We're going to get through this. You know that, right?”

“Murphy,” I said, hating the words even as they came out of my mouth, “I-I’m not actually sure that we can. You don’t love me. And I’m not in love-”

“Hey.” The calm warmth in her voice made me look up in surprise. “ _We_ are going to get through this rescue,” she repeated, deliberately, slowly, keeping her eyes on my face. “I’ve got faith in you.”

 _Faith_.

I opened my mouth, and then closed it again and swallowed hard against the heat swarming up to prickle at the back of my eyes.

It would’ve seemed like such a trivial thing to say, to anyone who didn’t know us. Who didn’t know _her_. But faith was, after all, the best of what Murphy had given me over the years: unending, unconditional support, no matter how much grief her bosses or her coworkers or her family heaped on her in return. She was sitting beside me ready to carry a holy sword and an unwanted child into battle, because she believed that saving me would do more good for the world than risking her own life. She had been the only one, eighteen months ago, who’d still believed I might come back from the dead – who’d believed, however wrongly, that I might still be alive. Who’d believed in _me_ , even given every reason not to.

Take it on faith, Uriel had told me, as I hung in that lingering half-space between life and death. Take it on faith. Mab cannot change who you are.

Murphy’s eyes met mine steadily, blue and bright and warm, and I felt the beginning of a soulgaze start to tug at my mind-

“…Boss?” I startled at the interruption, reaching out automatically for Winter power, before I _sensed_ Winter power next to me, and noticed Molly standing a few feet away, looking shy. “I, uh- sorry, just- I don’t know if you had any food yet, and the donuts are almost gone, and, I- here.”

She thrust out one hand, offering out a paper plate.

I stared.

Each donut on it was an _exact dead ringer_ for the donuts Donar Vadderrung had given me two years ago. Right down to the shape and placement of the blobby white frosting.

Vadderrung gave me those donuts right after I asked him for his advice, right before I first swore myself to Mab and took on the mantle of the Winter Knight. Right after he told me that I already had everything I needed to save my daughter. That the solution to all my problems was right in front of my eyes.

I stared at the donuts for a few seconds. I looked up at Molly, staring blankly down at me and Murphy and the space between us with heartbreak shining out all over her young face, and over at Murphy, who was watching me with distant, puzzled concern.

Then I thanked Molly politely, reached forward, picked up a donut, and ate it.

…Yep. Tasted the same too.

I lifted my hand to take a second bite-

-and froze, blinking, at the bandage in front of my face.

“Harry?” Karrin blinked at me. “Harry, what’s the matter?”

I stared at my left hand.

“…Harry?”

I dropped the donut, and closed my hand into a fist. Opened it. Closed it again. I could feel the sigil-shaped burns twisting and stretching over my moving skin, beneath the gauze and tape.

The back of my neck started to prickle.

Happy birthday, Marcone had told me. With as little attention as I paid to the actual date these days, I’d almost forgotten what day it was.

My birthday. Halloween.

And here I was, less one coin.

“Harry, are you all right?!”

No. No, I was _not_ all right.

God damn Faerie. God _damn_ Marcone, and Thomas, and Murphy, and Mab, for making me think this whole rescue thing might be straightforward – for making me think this was all just a case of love and war and fate. Because however much I might hate it, I _knew_ Faerie, and if you ever thought things were _simple_ when dealing with the Fae, well, that just meant somewhere there was a joke being played at your expense.

And the punchline was probably a killer.

I stared across at Murphy in a horror so complete I forgot to look away from her eyes.

 

 

Murphy’s soul was _good_.

I realized, sinking into it, with a feeling of _oh yes, of course_ that both of us were standing in her father’s old office, recognizable from my time spent as a ghost. Her body, braced upright in front of the desk, was scarred and weather-worn, as naked as she’d been back in Marcone’s rooms at Brighter Futures, except for an empty scabbard hanging by her side. There were ugly marks on her wrists, her forehead, over her heart and just below her navel above her womb, and her skin was tough and grimy, and she looked every inch her age.

I knew, with an uneasy twist of guilt, that at least a few of those scars had come from me.

But none of that mattered here. Not in comparison with her _light_.

In the Sight, Murphy had looked like a warrior garbed in fire, glowing with righteous illumination, moving through the darkness of the nether realms like a beacon of hope and truth.

Soulgaze-Murphy looked almost exactly the same, except this time, the light was coming from inside her.

Looking at her now, soul-to-soul, I felt nothing even remotely resembling arousal. She was beautiful, yes, but more than that, she was _pure_. She had honor like no one I’d ever seen before, and where Michael’s overwhelming charity had made me cry, the raw strength of Murphy’s honor made me half-afraid. She _glowed_ with it. The light was so strong, it nearly obscured her skin and face and our surroundings, and it grew as I watched, until I had to turn my eyes away, until it was impossible to look into directly. It was good, and glorious, and terrible: the kind of good that isn’t nice, the kind that burns the world to fit the shape it should be. The kind of good that hurts.

She was beautiful. She was beautiful, and noble, and I loved her, and I wanted to keep her in my life however she’d have me, and I had hurt her more deeply than anybody else had in years.

…And none of this was news.

I blinked. The church swam back into focus around us. Murphy was gaping up at me with tears in her eyes.

“Harry,” she choked out. “Oh, _Harry_ \- Harry, what _happened_ to you?”

Her hand on my shoulder shook me awake, aware, and horrified as my memory of the last few minutes came rushing back.

“Oh broken stones and fallen stars.” I swore, viciously.

Because I knew, now, what Mab had done to me.

Worse, I knew what _Marcone_ had done.

“…Harry?”

“I have been a colossal idiot,” I breathed, eyes still stuck on Murphy’s (I could _look_ now, I was _allowed_ ) “and Marcone is _entirely_ too damn distracting.”

“Um, okay,” said Murphy, blinking back at me. “I have to say, I wasn’t really expecting you to admit-”

“Karrin,” I said, reaching quickly out to grab one of her hands in both of mine, “look, I- shit, I’m sorry about dumping a soulgaze on you like that, I didn’t mean to, and if you want to talk later I’d be happy to, but right now I have to ask you some questions, because I think I just figured something out.”

For someone who’d just been hit head-on with all the ugly, scarred nastiness that made up my soul, Murphy had recovered remarkably quickly. She was more composed about whole the experience, in fact, than anyone I’d ever soulgazed before, except Marcone.

 _Fucking_ Marcone.

“Harry, what’s wrong?”

I nearly jumped at the sound of Molly’s voice – I think both Murphy and I had forgotten she and her donuts were still there.

“That’s going to take a little while to explain,” I said slowly. “I’m still not entirely sure I’m right about this. And I’m going to need you both to confirm some stuff for me, because of the holes in my memory.”

Murphy and Molly’s faces froze simultaneously, in such identical expressions of guilty fear that would have been hilarious under any other circumstances.

“Look, I _know_ Molly wiped my mind,” I said impatiently. “I’m not stupid, I can count, I know I’m missing about six hours of time. This _isn’t about that_. I need to know if I was imagining things, or if I really did see Mort at the church here earlier.”

“Yeah, he was here,” said Murphy slowly. Lines of stress had appeared around her eyes when I mentioned my memory, but thankfully she didn’t waste any time asking me questions. “He snuck out the back as soon as you turned up. He’s still trying to fly under Marcone’s radar, and he didn’t want to get mixed up in any of our ‘suicidal heroics’ – his words, not mine. He’d only stopped by in the first place to talk to Billy and me-”

“And to tell you that he’d felt a great disturbance in the Force,” I said, fighting to keep my voice steady. “As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”

_…Baron Marcone will shortly attempt a ritual which will place him in a position resulting in certain death…_

“Harry, is this _really_ the time for Star Wars quotes?”

“No, seriously, Karri-Murphy. Murphy! This is important. Mort sensed something, something big, didn’t he? Ghostly turmoil, all the graves ope’d wide and let forth their spirits. Lots of people dying, like, a _lot_ , over the course of the last couple days, right?”

The wary surprise on her face was all the confirmation I needed. I let out a shaky breath.

“And let me guess,” I said, standing up and grabbing for my staff, “you were all busy worrying about saving me, so you told him you didn’t have time to deal with it and you’d look into it after the Hunt was over.”

Out of the corner of my eye, down at the other end of the hall, I saw one of the doors slam open. Marcone had come back from his shower, trailing Hendricks behind him, and looking murderous. _Good_.

Murphy and Molly scrambled to follow me as I strode off through the church, Murphy grabbing for her sword as she went.

“Harry, what’s going on? Why does it matter what Mort said?”

“It matters,” I gritted out, storming full-tilt down the narrow church aisle toward where Marcone stood at the altar, “because John Marcone is a lying bastard, and today is my birthday, and Faeries and mobsters do nothing for free.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you know those flashbacks Harry's been having? The ones he keeps insisting aren't a problem? The ones that tend to happen around Winter power, and damaged mortals, that he's been trying so very, very hard to ignore?  
> ...Um, yeah.
> 
> Warnings for graphic violence (this is probably the most violent chapter so far, guys!), flashbacks, and PTSD.

_Till upon then started young Tam Lin,_   
_Says, Lady, thou pu's nae mae._

Hendricks must’ve seen something in my face, because he moved to step out in front of his employer as I came charging toward them. I swept him aside with barely a wave of my hand. I didn’t need to gather in my power for this confrontation – my magic was rising already of its own accord, making frost curl itself down my staff and a cold wind rattle the windows, fueled by the clean glory of Murphy’s soul beside me and the bitter taste of betrayal in the back of my throat when I thought about what I’d done to her, what Marcone had done to _me_. My Winter magic was rising, and it felt like _anger_.

I should have known.

Mab had _told_ me, and it had still taken me two and a half days to figure out what she was saying, because I couldn't believe Marcone would do something like this. But Mab had given me two very specific, two very _separate_ facts at the beginning of this mission: 'Baron Marcone will shortly attempt a ritual that will result in certain death', and 'I am going to have to order you to kill John Marcone'.

'Going' to have to order me. Which meant she _hadn't_ told me to kill Marcone yet. Which meant whatever 'death' the ritual caused wouldn't be Marcone's. And the only ritual I knew that resulted in _certain_ death – either the death of the caster, or the death of everyone around them – was the Darkhallow.

According to Mort, via Murphy, there had been lots of deaths, and therefore lots of death-energy floating around Chicago, just days before Halloween. The Wild Hunt was about to be called. My coin was missing – a coin holding a fallen angel who, thanks to my own stupidity in relying on her photographic memory, undoubtedly remembered every last detail of the Darkhallow ritual that would let a petty necromancer escalate into godhood using the Wild Hunt. And no one could have gotten hold of that coin without Marcone.

I should have fucking well known.

All this time, I’d been treating Marcone’s familiar, twisted, black-and-grey morality as a fixed point – hell, as the _one_ fixed point in this whole nasty, horrifying, emotional mess.  I should have known that as much as the last two years had changed me, they would have changed him as well.

I knew he was a scumbag. I knew he was willing to go, and had already been to, some pretty damn horrific lengths to get what he wanted – hell, look at the way he pulled my coin out in the first place. I’d always known he was working another angle, I’d just thought it was – Amanda. Safety. The city. Something. I never thought he’d be willing to risk the city – risk _our_ city, just for the sake of power.

Angry? Who, me?

Mixed with the blood on my tongue, I tasted fury like the memory of hellfire, and it tasted _good_.

Marcone looked up as soon as Hendricks fell backward, opening his mouth as if to speak, and I paused to grab a basin of holy water from the communion table and dash it full in his face.

“ _Infriga servitas_!”

The water froze into a silvery-solid gag across the lower half of Marcone’s head, and he reeled backward from the force of my spell, eyes suddenly wide with alarm. His right hand flickered, reaching for a knife, but I slammed him bodily back against the wall with another gust of force and the throw went sideways, narrowly missing Murphy’s face.

Behind me, Hendricks had his gun up and firing.

I stumbled slightly forward as the first of the bullets smacked into my shield, and behind me, Murphy ducked aside from the ricochet, twisted, and spun in to slam her sword up against Hendricks’s neck as he struggled back up out of the mess he’d made of the front three pews, already firing again for my head and knees.

As I focused on bringing my shield up and out far enough to cover Murphy, Marcone managed to get his hands on another knife and bury it in the meat of my thigh. I collapsed, hard, and was only barely able to translate the fall into forward momentum so I crashed into him instead of the floor as I went down.

I’m a big guy.

I know, I know, I’ve said it a lot – but the point bears repeating. I am a _big_ guy. I weigh more, stone for stone, than pretty much every human opponent I go up against, and while size isn’t everything (I am, for example, still unable to defeat Murphy in any kind of hand to hand fight) in a close-quarters grapple, size _matters_. Marcone might have been six foot tall and muscled all over, but I slammed him into the ground with barely any effort at all.

“ _Seishishite_!”

Molly’s voice broke out behind us. She sounded winded; she’d barely managed to limp halfway down the church hall in the time it had taken me to subdue Marcone. Hendricks went abruptly, unnaturally still, eyes rolling wildly back and forth, and Murphy reached out to tug the gun away from his hands, keeping her sword carefully leveled at his chest.

“Harry?” Murphy panted, looking over to where I had Marcone pinned down on the floor beneath the altar. “Care to explain what that was all about?”

I shoved my head down until I was nose-to-nose with Marcone, ignoring the screaming pain coming from my left leg, and lifted one arm to discharge a force ring right into his dog-bitten shoulder.

A muffled, aborted choking noise echoed out around the ice gag, and his head thunked down against the floor.

“You pull a knife on me again,” I snarled, forcing my face close enough to feel his too-fast breath huff against my cheek, “and the next force ring goes through your forehead. Understand?”

He lay still for a second or two, breathing heavily through his nose, then gave a short, sharp nod. I swung my staff around to jam one end under his chin, and pushed myself up, one knee planted firmly in the middle of his chest. My leg was throbbing, but the wound wasn’t too bad; or, at least, the furious adrenaline pounding through my veins was letting me ignore it.

“...Harry?”

Murphy’s voice had moved past wary and into alarmed. I ignored her.

“I’m going to take this ice off you,” I informed Marcone, “and then you’re going to tell me who _exactly_ you gave my coin to and what exactly they’ve done to my city.” I nudged his chin with my staff. “ _Fuego_.”

Water sleeted off his face in sheets, warmth spreading out from the flash of fire at the end of my staff. He doubled up, coughing, as it flooded his throat, fishmouthing gasps of molten ice.

“Stand down,” he gasped, with his first lungful of air. “D-Don’t-”

Marcone’s half-finished “Don’t” echoed through my body like icy shocks of electricity, wrapping potential around my throat and nerves, sending a feedback loop of Winter power skittering between us. I dropped my staff and _lunged_ at him, slamming him bodily down against the church flagstones with one hand wrapped over his mouth and the other around his fragile, mortal neck.

“Don’t you _dare_ give me orders!”

He was gasping against my hands, still trying to complete the unfinished order, and I could feel Winter power dancing through me, sparking off the whispers of _don’t_ , the feeling of _master_ , ice frosting over his bare neck and throat and over every inch of skin between us until all I could taste was cold snow-

“Don’t tell me what to do, you don’t _get_ to tell me what to do, you bastard-”

“Harry!”

“Harry, what-”

_“Don’t stop,” Mab’s voice whispered in my ear, as I stood below her pouring down fire-_

“Don’t TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

“ _Akumus!_ ” Molly’s voice yelled out behind me-

 _Ice_.

The world dissolved around me.

The air was dark, then bright, sparkling with color, familiar cold magic curling in around my senses-

_Don’t- don’t- don’t-_

“Don’t stop,” Mab breathed into my ear, and I had to stand still as I watched the charring flesh of the changelings in their cages, smelled the burn like roast meat and I could hear them screaming Susan was screaming I could smell Susan burning and Mab was shouting at me, Mab was underneath me and struggling and Susan and death and ice and Susan and Mab-

“Get off, Harry, he’s human, you’re killing him, Harry. _HARRY_!”

Through the field of white filling my vision, I became dimly aware of fingers pulling at my hands, my shoulders. But they were meaningless next to the screams in my head, the ice and gore clouding my eyes and the oppressive feeling of _Winter_ , of _master_ , of _Mab_ , Mab was lying underneath me and _I would make her hurt-_

A sharp spike of pain shot through the left half of my chest, and my whole body ground down into still shock as the cut finally broke through the storming, drowning sensation of Winter.

Green. Human, warm, summer-green eyes, and someone’s warm hand clutching at my shoulder. Stone walls, around and above me, and the echoing yells of warm human voices. There was a cold nose pressed up against my side, and brown fur brushing against the left half of my body, pressing up into my face.

Mouse licked my cheek, and I felt the tension drain from me as if a button had been pressed.

“I-” I took a deep breath, and breathed in the taste of frost. A blanket of frost had spiraled out from Marcone’s ice-covered chest across the church floor, over the shattered window, the overturned pews, over Molly’s hair where she stood staring, Mouse’s hairy snout, Hendricks’ gun and Butters’ eyebrows and Marci’s and Charity’s clothing, Andi’s fur…

That was skin against my hands. Warm, human skin, the pulse stuttering like a dying bird, and the rasp of a rough, unshaved neck beneath my fingers.

From beneath where Mouse had somehow squirmed his way between us, Marcone’s green eyes stared up at me, red-rimmed from where one of his capillaries had burst, pupils blown wide.

“He’s mortal,” Murphy’s voice was repeating, raspy and hoarse, somewhere near my right ear. “Harry. He’s mortal, he's not a faerie. You're not in faerie. You have to stop, Harry, he’s human-”

Mortal. Human.

 _Not Mab_.

I could have _killed_ him.

I let go of his neck and scrambled, suddenly frantic, shoving Mouse aside and tearing at Marcone’s dress shirt until I could feel his heart, still beating, under my palm.

Human. He was human. And I’d almost killed him, without even _realizing_ -

“ _Calfeascus_ ,” I breathed, repressing the tremble in my shaky hands by bracing them against his skin. “ _Calfactus, calfeasce, calfuego. Solaris calfeasce_.”

Warmth flooded out from my palms, spreading across Marcone’s body in a wide swathe of melting frost, sending steam pouring off his blue skin until he was left drenched and gasping for breath. His hands, I noticed, were shaking too.

We stared at each other.

“John,” I said evenly, “where’s my coin?”

“I’m not sure I should tell you that,” said Marcone, eyeing me warily. His voice was so hoarse, it was almost inaudible; he was still breathing hard. I fought back a snarl, and ignored the impulses that were loudly telling me to choke him again.

“I _do not have time_ for this right now. _Who has my coin_?”

He twitched when I clenched my left hand, but he met my gaze and lifted his chin defiantly, voice as even as possible for a man whose throat had just been forcibly compressed into the basso range.

“If you want to take it back, Mr. Dresden, you’re going to have to hit me with a hell of a lot worse than snowflakes, _particularly_ after that last display of wrath.”

I stared at him for a second, then, against my will, burst out laughing.

“For Star’s sake, Marcone, it’s not the One Ring!”

His eyes narrowed. “Really. And you’re in the habit of attacking ordinary mortals now, are you?”

Attacking ordinary mortals. Oh. Oh, that was _priceless_.

"Not- not _ordinary_ mortals-"

My laughter was coming out thinner and threadier, and much, much louder than normal; I couldn’t seem to get my lungs under control.

“Harry, are you okay?” Murphy’s sword vanished from my ribs, and one arm slid up around my shoulders.

“Fine,” I tried to say, but found my lungs were no longer working; the memory of Susan’s eyes and ice and death looping again and again in my mind.

“Harry. Harry, breathe with me, okay. Come on. Don’t- You don’t need magic, Harry, you don’t need to defend yourself, you’re safe here-”

Mouse whined.

Around the sound of my own harsh breathing, Murphy’s voice was getting rougher, high and scared. Marcone made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, reached out a hand, and yanked me back down on top of him, knocking the breath from my body and forcing my wrist down to fit my left hand back over the front of his neck.

“Feel _that_.”

My brain skittered to a halt. For one long second, I could feel the slow, vulnerable pulse of Marcone’s rough skin twitching alive beneath my fingers, before the order cut through my skin like a knife.

“I’m human, Dresden. I’m unarmed. You want to kill me, you can go right the fuck ahead.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I forced out. My voice sounded nearly as low and rough as his did, but at least I could breathe again.

It took physical effort to peel my hands off his body.

Sometime in the last ten minutes, the church windows had become glazed with ice, and I could feel a cold wind dying out at my back. We were all standing in about three inches of snow, and tiny flakes were still dancing down from the ceiling above me, floating down to catch in Marcone’s lashes.

I concentrated, and the snowflakes, gradually, stopped.

“Harry, what happened?” Murphy’s voice drifted gently into my ears, soft and horrified and distant.

Oh. Right. That was her hand on my shouler, her sheathed sword pressed up against my ribcage; I could feel where Fidelaccius’s blade had broken my skin. She was the one who’d pulled me out of it.

“I-” I swallowed, my eyes still caught up in Marcone’s, then started again. “I-”

Butters, Molly, Mouse, various Alphas, and Charity were all staring at me from down on either side of the aisle, with faces full of varying amounts of confusion and poorly-hidden fear. Sanya was poised with Esperaccius unsheathed at the edge of the dais opposite the motionless Hendricks, and he and Marcone, still holding my wrist, were the only two people looking at me who didn’t seem frightened at all.

“That wasn’t about Lasciel,” I told them all, keeping my voice steady. “ _This_ isn’t about Lasciel. That was-”

Cold. Winter. _Susan_.

“Look me in the eye,” I spat, glaring down at Marcone, “and tell me you didn’t just sell Lasciel’s coin and the Darkhallow ritual to the highest bidder you could find.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note for those of you who are following the update-drama: my computer is fixed, and probably 80% of my lost writing has been restored (yay!). There are about 22 chapters after this one (yes, you heard that right...we ARE ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH) so you have lots of fic to look forward to in future, although without a beta it's been very slow going trying to get it all back. (Anyone out there willing to beta for me? ...Anyone? *smiles prettily* I offer my own beta-services in return! Or prompt-fills! Or firstborn children!)


End file.
